


love comes close

by daelos



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-06-17 13:42:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 52,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15462666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daelos/pseuds/daelos
Summary: Those round, dark eyes widen impossibly further.“Yuta hyung!” Ten scolds, covering the bot’s ears with his hands. “He was literally born like two minutes ago, don't hurt his feelings!”-Or, the one where Taeyong is an android and Yuta is trying to deal with it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is definitely sort of experimental lol but we just out here trying new things ?? please let me know what you think!

It starts, as all bad decisions do, with Ten.

It’s a lazy Saturday afternoon, maybe Sunday, Yuta’s not sure. In the middle of summer, there’s no point trying to keep track of the days when they all liquefy like caramel and drip into each other anyway. He and Ten are sprawled out on the living room floor at Doyoung’s place because everyone else’s air conditioning (including theirs) doesn’t work for shit. Doyoung himself is out running errands or sucking face with Jaehyun or something, and the consequent lack of a responsible presence is, in hindsight, more than likely why the mess is able to progress as far as it does.

"You have to see this,” announces Ten, shoving his laptop screen in Yuta’s face. Yuta wants to argue that he doesn’t _have_ to do anything, thanks, but the look in Ten’s eyes tells him this isn’t a fight he’s going to win. Reluctantly, he puts down the volume of One Piece in his hands to take a look, but when he catches sight of the SM Industries logo at the top of the page, he backs up at least a meter on instinct.

“This is an SM notice? I don’t want to take any part in feeding your obsession with that creepy lab,” says Yuta, already on guard.

“It’s not an obsession!” Ten fires back, immediately defensive. “I’m just interested, is all. And it’s not creepy, either. In case you weren’t aware, android development is the pinnacle of modern bioengineering.”

Yuta shoots him an unimpressed look. “Yeah, I wasn’t aware, actually. You’ve only told me like thirty million times.”

“Because it’s relevant!” insists Ten. “Come on, just read it.”

In the interest of saving himself an impassioned hour-long speech, Yuta gives in and scrolls through the notice. Ten watches him the entire time with wide, expectant eyes.

“So?” he prods when Yuta hands back the laptop. “What do you think?”

“I think that it’s unnerving as hell,” answers Yuta, already reopening his manga at the page on which he’d left off as he reclines on the blessedly cool floor.

Ten frowns. “It doesn’t strike you as even a little bit exciting? Their newest model adapts to your personality through continued daily interaction so that after a while, they can function independently in the background based on your preferences. You don’t have to program instructions or anything. It literally redefines the term ‘personal assistant.’”

“That’s terrifying,” says Yuta flatly. “Why should I let a robot collect data on me by living in my actual home? I’d just be asking to get murdered.”

“You watch too many sci-fi movies,” Ten tells him, unperturbed. Yuta shrugs and doesn't bother dignifying that with a response. If Ten wants to get his neck sliced open in his sleep, that's his own prerogative.

Once the conversation has dwindled down, a period of relative silence proceeds to stretch over them, punctuated only by the sound of Ten typing away and the background whirr of Doyoung’s god-given AC unit. The sunlight shining through the window casts geometric patterns on the floor that dance over their outstretched legs, directionless, meandering. Eventually, Yuta’s arms tire of holding the manga open over his head, so he lets it fall with a plop onto his chest and closes his eyes. The quiet is actually kind of soothing, and he gives in to the temptation to take a nap.

When he opens his eyes maybe half an hour later, Ten is hovering over him and wearing the kind of smile that Yuta has come to automatically associate with hellion shenanigans. He briefly considers going back to sleep, but knowing Ten, whatever situation it is that he’s created now will require immediate attention.

“What did you do,” says Yuta, sitting up with a groan. The volume of One Piece slides sadly off his torso and onto the floor, denting a corner in the process (Yuta winces internally, but leaves it for the time being.)

“How come the first thing you do after waking up is assume that I did something,” complains Ten. “Maybe something good just coincidentally happened to me.”

Yuta squints. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Sounds like a personal problem,” says Ten, tapping at his keyboard. “The coolest opportunity just fell into my lap and you’re gonna be part of it.”

Yuta really, really doesn’t like the sound of this now. “Please don’t tell me it has to do with that robot manufacturing company.”

“ _Androids_ ,” corrects Ten. “And, uh, no can do.” He presses the enter key before spinning his laptop screen into view with a dramatic flourish, and Yuta watches apprehensively as the page redirects.

“From the whole of the development team at SM Industries, thank you for your interest in participating in the NCT127 staggered launch initiative,” Yuta reads out loud. “Wow, I hate it already.”

“Keep going,” urges Ten, practically vibrating in place.

“We will review your response to determine your compatibility with the program. A representative will reach out to you soon to let you know if you have been accepted. Have a wonderful day,” finishes Yuta warily. “Alright, I know I’m going to regret asking, but what exactly is NCT127?”

“Well,” starts Ten, looking alarmingly pleased with himself, “you know how I told you that their newest model interacts with you on a daily basis so it can basically self-program? It turns out that they’re having some trouble fine-tuning the emotional response because the sample set of personalities in the lab is too small.”

“So, what, they’re looking for a larger sample? I don’t know what that has to do with…” Yuta’s eyebrows go from being furrowed in thought to shooting halfway up his forehead in the space of a second. “Oh my god. You flaming sack of shit. Do _not_ tell me that you—”

“Applied to host an android of our own!” Ten is positively gleeful.

“Then un-apply!” Yuta hisses immediately, snatching the laptop and starting to pound the back button at a truly frightening velocity.

Ten watches him with amusement. “That’s not going to do anything. The form was already submitted.”

“Well, how do you fucking unsubmit?” snaps Yuta, now aggressively scanning the website for a cancellation option, something, anything. “There's got to be a way.”

“Can you chill? I might not even get approved, you know.”

“But you will, because your luck is stupid good and the universe has it out for me. You’re gonna get approved and I’m gonna hate you for it and Armageddon will commence in our apartment after the terminator robot you ordered shows up in the mail.”

Though he hopes it doesn’t show on his face or in his tone, Yuta is just as nervous as he is incensed. He’s more or less grudgingly entertained Ten’s fascination with SM Industries and all the fuckery that they engage in for the past several years—albeit carefully and from a distance. This is crossing the line. This is crossing every line imaginable. Ten’s nonchalant dismissal of the very real possibility of a robot spy taking up residence in their home is one express shipment away from getting them both murdered, cloned, or kidnapped for use as test subjects. Possibly all three, though not in that order.

“Nobody’s getting murdered, drama queen,” Ten says, and Yuta realizes that he’s voiced the tail end of this panicked line of thinking aloud.

He sniffs. “You may not want to believe it, but least one of us is getting taken out. I hope to God it's you."

Ten only laughs.

 

+

 

Yuta floats through the next few days in a haze of what-ifs, peace of mind compromised by thoughts of the data-aggregating robot that could potentially arrive at his door anytime. While he doesn't consider himself a conspiracy theorist, per se (“Lies,” says Ten. “You spent all afternoon yesterday telling me about the lizard people masquerading as lawmakers in our government”), he just likes to be careful, and the prospect of this home invasion is triggering every alert signal wired into his brain.

He complains about it to Jaehyun one night over cheap takeout, as has become routine for the two of them whenever Yuta has something to get off his chest.

Jaehyun spends three entire minutes chewing contemplatively on his orange chicken before he answers, more likely because the food went cold an hour ago than because he’s actually thinking hard about what he wants to say.

“Well,” he begins after swallowing the gluey meat. “It does sound kind of cool.”

Yuta glares at him over the clump of noodles he’s lifting to his mouth. “You too?”

“What?” Jaehyun’s eyebrows rise a little in sync with both his palms, which come up in the air as if to defend the innocuity of his opinion.

“Ten hasn’t stopped hyping up the program ever since he submitted that cursed application and now you’re siding with him? It’s cool? It’s potentially life-threatening.”  
  
“There’s no need to be so paranoid,” responds Jaehyun mildly. “You sound kind of like Doyoung right now.”

Yuta’s scowl deepens, if possible. “I resent that.”

Jaehyun laughs into his rice. “I’m just saying that maybe you could look at the situation with more of an open mind.”

“My mind will never be more open than on the night Ten’s assassin bot decides to murk me,” says Yuta. “Skull cracked. Full-on cerebral hemorrhage.”

Jaehyun blinks, taking a second to absorb this, and then shovels another bite of orange chicken into his mouth. “That’s pretty morbid, hyung.”

Putting down his takeout box, Yuta crosses his arms. “When I die. Then you will realize.”

 

+

 

Ten’s application gets approved on Wednesday because of course it does. He receives the shipping notification at 8 AM sharp Thursday morning, and by the start of the weekend, there is a massive box looming threateningly against the ground floor elevator doors of their apartment building. The minute Yuta sees it, he calls his mom to tell her he loves her because he’s not sure if he’ll ever get to say that to her again. Ten thinks it’s hilarious.

He enlists an unwilling Yuta’s help to drag the huge box into the elevator. Surprisingly, it’s a lot lighter than it looks: either their live-in murderer is really short or possesses a build approximately equivalent to that of an uncooked piece of linguini.

When they get inside the apartment and Yuta cautiously unfolds the intimidatingly thick user guide that came with the package, he is gratified to see that the robot appears to be both. The fact that Yuta could probably take said aluminum corn husk in a fight does help to alleviate his worry a tiny bit.

“Are you going to stand there and admire it all day or are you going to open it?” gripes Ten, impatient.

Yuta makes a face at him but doesn’t move. His grip around the user guide tightens incrementally until his fingers are clawing dents into the cover page, at which point Ten eases it out of his hands and tosses it on the countertop. “If you won’t, then I will,” he warns.

Staring forlornly at the still-sealed box lying flat on their kitchen floor, Yuta relents. There isn’t really any other choice available to him at the moment. By the time he sighs out “Go ahead, I guess,” Ten is already kneeling on the ground, hacking away enthusiastically at the fortified layers of casing with an X-Acto knife. It briefly crosses Yuta’s mind that his roommate’s unrestrained zeal for knife work is potentially something to be concerned about, but he shelves that thought for a different day.

Gradually, Ten works the box open while Yuta watches from a safe distance. By the time most of the hard shell has been breached and Ten is pulling out armfuls of bubble wrap, Yuta’s palms are feeling a little clammy.

“I want to do it,” he says suddenly, surprised to hear the words come out of his own mouth.

Ten puts down the knife and squints at him critically. “Are you sure? You look like you think it’s gonna eat you.”

“Who’s to say it won’t,” mutters Yuta, wiping off his palms roughly against his jeans. Frankly speaking, he’s still scared as shit, but if they’re really going to unearth a murderous android spy right here in their kitchen, then he damn well ought to be at the forefront.

Taking the X-Acto knife in hand and ignoring the tremor in his wrists, Yuta kneels and slices viciously into the heavily insulated belly of the box. He yanks away the remaining bubble wrap as if possessed, furiously tossing it over his shoulder until his fingers brush something cold and smooth and decidedly not plastic. That’s when he screams a little.

Ten rolls his eyes and leans over to clear away the rest of the packaging. Then, he pauses and gapes. “You’re going to want to take a look at this.”

Yuta’s heartbeat thunders between his ears as he leans over the newly exposed humanoid form lying in the box. He doesn’t know what he’d been expecting, exactly (maybe some decked-out twenty-first century upgrade of the tin man from the Wizard of Oz?), but it certainly wasn’t this. It’s as fascinating as it is unsettling; the android looks so real it sends chills skating down Yuta’s spine. Its features are delicate, skin smooth, soft hair arranged so that not a strand appears out of place. The level of detail evident is magnificent, as much as it pains him to concede, from the bluish tint of veins along its forearms to the wispy eyelashes skimming the top of its cheeks. Yuta doesn’t even know whether he should be calling the thing in the box an _it_ because it looks, for all the world, like a living, breathing person.

Ten lets out a low whistle that jolts Yuta out of his semi-stupor. “That’s pretty fucking cool.”

Without removing his gaze from the robot’s immaculately crafted face, Yuta leans back on his heels and drops the knife. “I guess that’s one way to put it.”

It takes all of five seconds for the awed hush that had spread over the kitchen to evaporate.

“Let’s turn it on!” hollers Ten as he springs to his feet. He dives across the floor to grab the user guide and begins paging through it at lightspeed. “How to program your NCT127-TY, page 5. Here we go.”

“What—right now?” Yuta is a little horrified.

“No, in fifty years when this is getting turned into spare parts in a junkyard. _Yes_ , right now. It's here and it works, why wait?”

“Because it's going to kill us all?”

“I haven't even activated the thing yet.”

“Yet,” Yuta repeats pointedly, but as usual, his warnings seem to dissipate into thin air as soon as he voices them. He winces as Ten sticks both hands into the box and casually lifts the robot’s head to feel around at the nape of its neck. “Do you even know what you’re looking for?”

“Main control panel.”

“And you're sure that's where it's supposed to be?”

“Yes.” Ten doesn't look up. “Stop bitching at me, I’ve almost got it.”

That's exactly what Yuta is afraid of. Tense, he watches Ten continue to fiddle with the robot’s neck. Its head, pillowed by Ten’s forearm, lolls slightly to the side just like a human’s, as though it's only sleeping. It gives Yuta goosebumps.

If he thought that much was bad, he was nowhere near prepared for the robot’s eyes to suddenly blink open.

“Fuckfuckfuck _fuck.”_ Yuta scrambles backwards on the heels of his hands, brandishing the X-Acto knife in front of him. The jackhammer heartbeat from earlier has returned with a vengeance, thudding violently through his entire body. He can’t even hear himself think over the sound, but that’s no great loss considering that all his short-circuiting mind can come up with at the moment is _AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA._

Ten, on the other hand, looks like a kid on Christmas Day. Gently, almost reverently, he withdraws his arms from the robot’s head and sits back. “Hi,” he greets, beaming. “I’m Ten.”

Yuta stares, petrified, as the robot blinks a few more times before slowly sitting up straight. Its movements are natural and smooth, nothing at all like the jerky, mechanical style favored by the robots he’s seen on TV or in the movies. Under that flawless skin must be a network of artificial joints and muscles more sophisticated than Yuta can possibly imagine. The worst part of it all is that the bot doesn’t look like it contains wires and circuits; it looks like if it incurred a papercut, it would shed real, red blood.

“Hello,” it responds after a beat in a terribly human voice. “I am… Taeyong.”

“That's incredible,” says Ten, transfixed.

“I hate it,” says Yuta.

It—Taeyong’s—head turns slightly in Yuta’s direction. “Who are you?” it asks. There's a sheen of curiosity to its round, dark eyes, like a kid going to school for the first time.

“Tell him your name,” Ten urges.

“I don't want to tell it my name!”

The robot’s gaze flits back and forth between the two of them. “I mean no harm.”

“We know,” soothes Ten, at the same time as Yuta scoffs, “Lying pile of scrap metal.”

Those round, dark eyes widen impossibly further.

“Yuta hyung!” Ten scolds, covering the bot’s ears with his hands. “He was literally born like two minutes ago, don't hurt his feelings!”

“It’s a robot,” protests Yuta, incredulous.

“ _He_ is an android.” Ten removes his hands. “And his name is Taeyong. Isn't that right?”

“That is correct. It is nice to meet you.” Taeyong extends one hyperrealistic arm and Yuta jumps.

“He’s only trying to shake your hand,” Ten says.

Yuta exhales deep and long. “I think I might pass out.”

Ten glances at him sideways. “Count backwards from ten,” he says, then smiles at his own joke. The look he subsequently receives (and ignores) is absolutely withering.

“Anyway, Taeyong, this is Yuta,” Ten introduces, attention once again fixed on the android in front of him. “You’re going to be living with us for a while, okay?”

“Okay,” agrees Taeyong easily. It even smiles back at Ten, an expression that comes out so effortlessly that Yuta almost forgets it was programmed in a lab. With the corners of its eyes crinkled and its lips turned up, the android looks like the picture of congeniality.

“Great,” says Ten, evidently delighted. “Let’s get you out of this box.” He reaches out to offer support, but Taeyong declines with a slight shake of its head.

“I can stand on my own,” says Taeyong. “This will help acclimate my kinesthetic sense.” It flexes its fingers a couple times, getting used to the sensation, then carefully grips the sides of the box and pushes up to a standing position. The look on Ten’s face as he observes this process can only be compared to that of a proud parent.

Yuta draws back, uncomfortably aware of how much space the android takes up when standing. Despite being a skinny thing with doe eyes that doesn’t look capable of killing so much as a fly, this Taeyong is now entirely too close for comfort.

Ten flips through the user guide for a bit before dog-earing a page, apparently having found what he was looking for. “Okay, look, it says here that once the TY model has been activated, you don’t even need to do anything else unless you have specific directions for him.” He looks up. “Do we have specific directions?”

“Maybe tell it not to go rogue and murder us,” says Yuta acidly.

“He’s not going to hurt anyone!”

The android nods slightly. “This is true. I will not. My programming dictates that my presence in your home is centered around your needs and preferences in order to reach the peak level of cohabitation.”

Yuta assesses its expression, which appears sincere. (Then again, do androids really have any concept of integrity?) Truthfully, everything about the bot is unassuming, from its slight stature to its mop of brownish hair whose bouncy fringe stops just above shining eyes. It even stands with its hands neatly folded behind its back, reminiscent of a preschooler awaiting instructions from a teacher. In fact, the only thing about Taeyong to suggest that it isn’t simply an ordinary person is how uncannily handsome its features are: small and symmetrical, they seem better suited to an animation or storybook character than a run-of-the-mill citizen.

“Whatever,” decides Yuta finally. Though he feels uncomfortable addressing Taeyong directly, he still makes sure to look the bot squarely in the eye while saying, “Just stay away from me.”

Taeyong bows politely. “As you wish.”

 

+

 

SENT 3:02 AM

_pretty fucked up that we assume that wall-e is a boy_

 

SENT 3:03 AM

_it’s a robot_

_jaehyun?_

_wake up jaehyun_

_listen_

SENT 3:04 AM

_it’s sexless_

RECEIVED 3:07 AM

_yuta hyung it is ass o’clock in the morning please go to sleep._

_+_

Over the next several days, Yuta becomes convinced that if the android doesn’t kill him, the soaring temperature definitely will. Ever since Taeyong’s arrival, he’s felt like a prisoner in his own home, staying shut up in his room as best as he can manage what with the oppressive heat slowly turning the apartment into a massive convection oven. The sun is scorching, making it impossible to go out and do much of anything yet frustrating to remain boxed indoors with an AC system on its last legs. Matters are not helped by the fact that Yuta’s safe space is now inhabited by a possible assassin.

To be entirely fair, though, Taeyong never fails to provide Yuta with the wide berth he’d demanded during their first encounter: the android gravitates towards the corner of the room if Yuta enters and never speaks to him unless spoken to. It doesn’t seem afraid of Yuta, or annoyed, or even cautious in the slightest. It simply stands by and observes, respecting his wish for space in a manner so tranquil it gets under Yuta’s skin a bit, because here he was psyching himself out for days in preparation for encountering a bona fide war machine and what does he get instead? Just an obsequious new housemate with shampoo commercial hair.

(Which doesn’t even grow from its fucking head! It’s sewn on! Yuta refuses to be bested in the luscious locks department by someone that technically came into being less than a week ago.)

On the other hand, Taeyong interacts happily and frequently with Ten, asking questions, mostly. It’s curious about everything from how Ten came to live in Korea to why he chose to room with Yuta. (That one gets a laugh out of him as he says, “Honestly, I’m not sure. His lack of reedeming qualities is glaring.”)

However, the true majority of Taeyong’s time is spent standing in the cramped kitchen or the living room, examining the clutter of everyday items that tend to get left lying around: a spoon, a dish towel, a pair of Ten’s shoes. This not only weirds Yuta the hell out, but it kind of pisses him off irrationally, too.

“Hey,” he says one day, not bothering to hide the frown on his face. “If you’re going to go around picking up all our stuff to analyze it or whatever, you could at least put it where it’s supposed to go.”

Taeyong’s head snaps up at the sound of Yuta’s voice. Its eyes are wide, perhaps from being addressed directly, but then again, this is more or less its resting expression. “Is this a command for me?”

Yuta squints. The idea of commanding someone around seems odd, even if they’re not technically a person. This Taeyong may well be a killer in disguise, but it certainly isn’t Yuta’s slave. “Um. It’s a suggestion, I guess.”

There’s a pause, during which Yuta can practically see the gears whirring in Taeyong’s head. “Understood!” it says eventually, looking unreasonably cheerful, and immediately marches off to the kitchen with Ten’s crusty bowl from breakfast this morning in hand. Yuta watches in disbelief as Taeyong puts the bowl carefully in the sink, then looks back to him for… approval?

“Yeah, that’s where it goes,” he says, wary.

“Excellent.” Taeyong just stands there, arms at its sides. Staring. Expectant.

Yuta can feel the irritation threading through his veins again. “Do you _need_ something?”

“Do you?” the android asks back, but without a drop of snark in its perpetually pleasant voice.

Huffing, Yuta turns to go back to his room. “Not really. You could wash the damn bowl if you want something to do that bad, though. Clean the whole kitchen, even. Go nuts.” He regrets the last part as soon as he says it, because the absolute last thing he wants on his hands is a rogue AI bot, but he just bites his tongue and heads down the short hall.

As it turns out, Yuta’s words bear more weight than expected.

“Yuta hyung!” comes Ten’s screechy voice around the hallway a few hours later, after he’s returned from helping Jungwoo down on the eleventh floor with some English paper for his summer class. “Did you do this? Did Taeyong do this? He did it, right?”

Heart rate spiking, Yuta quite literally jumps off his bed and sprints. He’s automatically fearing the worst—has Taeyong trashed the place? finally switched into Terminator mode?—but he stops dead in his tracks when the kitchen comes into view.

It’s spotless. The floor is gleaming like he’s never seen it; all the useless debris that piles up on the countertop has been magically spirited away; the dishes are washed and dried, fridge wiped down, and there’s a fruit bowl next to the toaster. An honest-to-God fruit bowl. Yuta didn’t even know they had one of those. And in the center of it all, looking inordinately proud, is Taeyong.

“Holy shit,” says Yuta.

“Yeah,” says Ten.

“My understanding is that keeping your living space tidy is conducive to successful cohabitation,” says Taeyong.

Ten crosses the distance between them in a few brisk strides and wraps Taeyong in a full-on hug _,_  wearing that little-kid-during-Christmas expression again. He looks so thrilled, so absolutely enamored, that Yuta is momentarily concerned he’s going to drop to one knee and propose then and there. Instead, Ten pulls back to get a good look at Taeyong’s face, hands firmly clasped over those skinny titanium-boned shoulders, and tells the bot, “You’re absolutely right.”

Watching Taeyong smile back at Ten with the same warmth mirrored in its face makes Yuta’s gut turn uncomfortably. Although he’s been privy to the android’s actions and expressions for several days now, it still disquiets him to witness these moments up close. When Taeyong grins like that, or in the rare moments that it frowns slightly in contemplation, the movement seems impossibly human, as if beneath that soft skin is a mass of flesh and nerves and fat like the rest of them.

Yuta feels he should be at least somewhat used to it by now, but every little action manages to confound him all over again. Taeyong’s very existence should be a contradiction—how can intelligence be engineered? How can life be artificial? It sounds awkward and wrong and doesn’t make any sense but the Taeyong that Yuta sees in front of him right here, in their kitchen, grinning this foolishly wide grin because of praise about a fruit bowl looks absolutely as real as anything else.

 

+

 

Of course, it’s only a matter of time before Doyoung finds out.

They’re at his place again, Ten for the air conditioning and Yuta next to him so that he doesn’t have to be alone with their new android housemate. Yuta’s just about to flip the page of his manga when the door to the apartment suddenly flies open and shuts with an ominous thud _,_  and the resulting full-body jerk the noise startles out of him sends the manga flying to the ground.

“Not again,” moans Yuta, dropping to his knees immediately to inspect the damaged cover. “This one is a collector’s edition.”

Ten, meanwhile, has his eyes fixed on the doorway, where a clearly fuming Doyoung now stands. “We may have bigger problems. Daddy’s home.”

Yuta glances up. “Shit. It was all Ten’s idea, I swear.”

“I don’t doubt it,” responds Doyoung, his mouth drawing into a tight little line. He hasn’t even bothered to put down the groceries he’s holding, just stands there with his fingers clenched around the plastic handles. The contents of a least a couple of the bags are fairly heavy, if the red marks pressed into the skin of his hands are anything to go by, but he doesn’t seem to care. It’s actually kind of scary.

“Hey now,” says Ten. “I didn’t even do anything.”

Doyoung looks about ready to pop a blood vessel. “You didn’t—you think you didn’t _do_ anything? Is ordering an artificial intelligence bot as part of a trial run for Korea’s largest bioengineering conglomerate not something you consider a big deal?”

“Not really, no. Taeyong’s chill. We’re just having a good time.”

“ _A good time_?” The angry flush of red visible in Doyoung’s ears and neck has begun to crawl up his face.

Ten blinks. “Well, yeah, that’s what I said.”

“You,” says Doyoung, “are a massive fuckwad.”

“Validation!” Yuta rounds on Ten, pointing an accusing finger. “See, I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

Ten gives a little shrug. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I mean, the deed is done. He’s already here and functional.”

“Unfortunately,” mutters Yuta.

Doyoung puts down his groceries and leans against the door, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand. “You are no longer welcome in my home,” he says finally, eyes squeezed shut. “That includes your mechanical pet menace.”

Ten thinks this over for a minute. “Hm. That’s probably justified.” Everyone in the room is aware that his agreement is a formality only offered to cool Doyoung’s temper a bit in the heat of the moment. He’ll be back in this apartment within a week if he really wants to.

“What about me?” ventures Yuta.

Doyoung narrows his eyes. “Aren’t you two some kind of package deal?”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh my God,” says Ten. “You don’t have to sound so offended. I’m not the plague.”

“That’s up for debate,” says Yuta.

“Don’t start,” Doyoung interjects tiredly. “For now, can both of you just—just go back to your own place and make nice with the sentient spyware observing you? Or not, I don’t care. Please get out.”

They watch as Doyoung spins on his heel and enters the kitchen, then begins rifling through the drawers. He emerges a moment later with a massive roll of duct tape in hand.

“What’s that for?” Ten asks.

Without turning around, Doyoung says, “I’m double-taping every camera lens in the vicinity. Also the windows. Probably have to re-encrypt my entire wireless network, too.”

A stilted pause.

“I, uh, don’t really think that’s necessary—” Ten tries.

“What do you know about necessary procedures?” snaps Doyoung. “You’ve unleashed robot mayhem on us all. The early stages are critical for preparation if I’m to survive the uprising.”

Yuta doesn’t need to look at Ten’s face to know there’s a massive grin flitting across his lips, along with a most likely inflammatory comment bubbling up on his tongue. Rolling his eyes, he beats the other to the punch. “Sure, Doyoung. We’ll keep that in mind.”

 

+

 

SENT 1:15 PM

_hey jung jaehyun_

 

SENT 1:17 PM

_hey_

 

SENT 1:20 PM

_hey_

 

RECEIVED 1:20 PM

_yes your highness_

 

SENT 1:20 PM

_can u come over_

_rn_

 

SENT 1:21 PM

_ten left for jungwoos place yday morning for a ““project”” and never came back i think theyre fucking LOOL_

_i dont want to be alone with the robot_

_pls_

 

RECEIVED 1:22 PM

_do u perhaps_

_realize that i too have someone i might rather be spending time with atm_

 

SENT 1:22 PM

_doyoung is boring hang out w me instead_

 

RECEIVED 1:22 PM

_but i love him_

 

SENT 1:23 PM

_disgusting anyway can u be here in 15_

 

RECEIVED 1:23 PM

_yea_

 

+

 

Jaehyun arrives in precisely fifteen minutes, no more, no less. Yuta flings open the door with unnecessary force when he hears the knock, immensely relieved that another human is now around to keep him company.

“My favorite dongsaeng!” he greets, displaying his trademark wide grin.

“That would be Sicheng,” corrects Jaehyun as he toes off his shoes.

Yuta deflates. Excuse him for trying to be a little extra nice. “Well, yeah, but he’s in China visiting family.”

“I do so treasure being your second favorite,” Jaehyun tells him, left cheek dimpling as the corner of his mouth quirks up. He runs a hand through floppy bangs as he glances around, presumably already sweating a bit from the humid warmth of the apartment despite just having entered. Yuta sympathizes. “So where’s the robot?”

“What, am I not enough for you now?”

“I didn’t turn my back on the prospect of Doyoung’s godly AC to come hold your hand,” says Jaehyun, dimpling now in both cheeks. “He’s at work right now and I had the central fan to myself.”

Yuta supposes this is valid, because he, too, jumps at any opportunity to leech off Doyoung’s superior living arrangement, and gestures vaguely at Ten’s room. “Taeyong’s in there somewhere. Cleaning, probably.”

“Taeyong?”

“The robot. It comes with its own name and everything.”

“Huh.” Jaehyun thinks about this for a minute. “Why’s it cleaning? That a programmed function, or?”

“No, it just likes it, I think. I told it to clean the kitchen one time because all it ever does is stand in the corner and stare at things with its x-ray eyes or whatever, and then it looked so proud of itself afterwards that Ten told it to feel free to move anything it wants. Now it goes around rearranging the apartment like a live-in interior designer.”

Jaehyun appraises the oddly immaculate state of the living room, from the polished TV screen to the catalogue-worthy throw pillow arrangement. (Yuta didn’t even know they had throw pillows. This is fast becoming a recurring theme of Taeyong’s home renovation pursuits.)

“I did notice that the place looks way cleaner than normal.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of nice actually—hey, where are you going?” Yuta cuts himself off, staring at Jaehyun’s retreating back.

“Ten’s room,” he replies over his shoulder. “I wanna meet your new friend.”

“It’s not our _friend_ ,” protests Yuta, hurrying after him, but the complaint falls on deaf ears. He sighs as Jaehyun swings Ten’s slightly cracked door all the way open and sticks his head inside.

“Oh, hey,” says Jaehyun, back still turned to Yuta. Apparently, he’s found Taeyong. “I’m Jaehyun. You wanna come out here for a bit?”

After a few moments, Taeyong emerges from the room with a spray bottle of Febreeze in hand. The android’s head is cocked to the side rather like a puppy’s, eyes wide as ever as it regards the new visitor. “Hello. I am Taeyong.”

“So I’ve heard,” says Jaehyun genially. “I’d like to talk with you for a minute, if that’s cool.”

Taeyong nods. “That is… cool.”

“Great!” Jaehyun gestures at the couch, where Yuta sits somewhat petulantly. “You wanna sit down?”

“This is not why I invited you over,” says Yuta flatly.

Jaehyun lifts a shoulder, nonplussed. “Well, it’s why I came. Do you want to sit, Taeyong?”

Taeyong looks at Yuta, who is beginning to adopt the slight scowl he always wears when Taeyong is around, then back at Jaehyun, then _pouts_. “Yuta does not like when I occupy the same general area as him.”

“Yuta hyung can be sort of a bitch,” says Jaehyun cheerfully. “Don’t mind him.”

Yuta’s jaw drops. “I didn’t raise you to be this insolent!”

“As far as I am aware,” says Taeyong contemplatively, “it is not possible for you to have raised Jaehyun-ssi at all. Are you not rather close in age?”

Jaehyun’s eyes shine with amusement. “I like him.”

“You and Ten should start a fanclub,” Yuta grumbles. He looks away from Taeyong’s general direction. “Sit, I guess.”

“With both of you?” Taeyong’s mental gears appear to be whirring at top speed again.

“Best not to make him say it twice,” advises Jaehyun, plopping down on Yuta’s right and patting the empty cushion next to him.

Hesitantly, Taeyong sits and leaves his well-loved bottle of Febreeze on the table. His posture is impeccable, back ramrod straight, hands resting on his string bean thighs. He looks strangely rigid next to Jaehyun, who’s leaning back comfortably and kind of manspreading, and shadowed by Jaehyun’s broader torso he also appears tinier than usual. It’s almost—

“Cute,” says Jaehyun, scrutinizing Taeyong’s features up close. “I didn’t know androids could look like this, I mean, the level of detail is unbelievable. He could be an idol with this face. Yuta hyung, why are you so bitter when you have someone this cute living with you?”

Yuta’s eyebrows draw together, and he’s about to bite out a retort when he notices Taeyong going pink. What the fuck? How is that even possible? He’d known Taeyong was capable of expressing basic emotions like happiness, but feeling flustered is surely beyond AI programming. Yet here Taeyong sits, his cheeks flushed at the praise, looking more and more human with each passing second.

With a start, Yuta realizes that he’s been mentally referring to Taeyong as a _he_ for the past few minutes. This is something he’s actively avoided ever since Ten powered the bot up on their kitchen floor, preferring instead to refer to him as an it _,_  something other, removed from personhood. The concept of Taeyong identifying with a gender was difficult to grasp because it implied that Taeyong had a sense of self to begin with, and since he was literally assembled by scientists on a lab table, this idea had Yuta a little spooked. Creating a distance, consequently, made it easier to stomach the android’s hyperrealistic visage.

Now, though, having seen that Taeyong is polite, almost childlike in his curiosity, impossibly real—not to mention, his reaction to Jaehyun’s casual compliment had hinted at an emotional range broader than Yuta had imagined—now, it feels wrong to objectify him like that. He wonders absently if Taeyong himself would prefer Yuta to acknowledge this verbally. Then he wonders why he cares about Taeyong’s opinion when the bot has only just graduated from the position of glorified Roomba to sentient being in Yuta’s eyes.

“Hello?” Jaehyun waves a hand in front of Yuta’s face. “Taeyong, I think I broke him. Are you sure you’re the machine?”

Taeyong looks perplexed. “I am sure, yes. However, I did not realize that humans could overheat as well.”

Jaehyun snorts. “That’s a good word for it.”

“I was just thinking,” says Yuta, emerging suddenly from the depths of his silent quarrel with himself. “Not overheating. I’m fine.”

“If you say so,” says Jaehyun slowly.

“Really,” Yuta insists. “I am. It’s just stuffy in here.”

“I’d let you into Doyoung’s but I think he’s still mad at you and Ten,” says Jaehyun. “And I’m trying to hold on to my AC access, so.”

Jaehyun proceeds to turn and face Taeyong fully, launching into some convoluted question about how his CPU works or something, Yuta doesn’t know. He doesn’t mess with STEM shit. Between himself and Ten, this is an arts household. While Jaehyun satisfies his Intellectual Curiosity and Taeyong provides the most thorough answers he can, Yuta slips quietly back into his previous train of thought.

He pictures Taeyong’s darting eyes as he’d essentially informed Jaehyun that Yuta didn’t like to breathe the same air as him. Not that Taeyong needs to breathe, but whatever. Yuta is cautious, sure; a conspiracy theorist, maybe; and yes, suspicious of artificial intelligence, not least because Doyoung’s end of the world scenario about robots seizing control of the earth is admittedly sort of well thought-out if you talk to him about it and perhaps Yuta buys into the idea just slightly. But since he’s acknowledging Taeyong as partially(?) human now, he decides resignedly that he doesn’t want to put that kicked puppy expression on Taeyong’s face again.

 _This is how they get you,_  Yuta thinks. _They design their tech to infiltrate your defenses by pouting. While I play nice with Taeyong, SM Industries is plotting to harvest my organs._

He presses the fingers of both hands into his temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on.

 

+

 

SENT 4:56 PM

_come collect ur pet robot he has somehow charmed jaehyun_

_it’s so weird in a couple hours they're suddenly like best friends?_

 

RECEIVED 4:57 PM

_Lmaoo tell doyoung hes being replaced_

_wait_

_did u just call taeyong a he_

 

SENT 4:57 PM

_fuck_

 

RECEIVED 4:57 PM

_too late i knew u would come around!!!_

_TY is cool right_

 

SENT 4:58 PM

_i still don’t trust him_

 

SENT 4:59 PM

_anyway u ever gonna come home or do u permanently reside in jungwoo’s ass now_

_?_

 

RECEIVED 5:00 PM

_god i wish._

 

+

 

Ten finally returns to the apartment as the sun is setting, just after Jaehyun leaves. He’s glowing from the inside out and wearing a shirt that is definitely not his own. Yuta bemoans the fact that while Ten is gallivanting through their apartment building getting laid, he’s been sitting in the living room listening to Taeyong and Jaehyun talk about circuitry. He had been on the brink of suggesting that Taeyong go live with Jaehyun instead if they get along so well before realizing that Doyoung would probably declare war should that ever happen, and as much fun as it is to rile Doyoung up most days, Yuta would like the opportunity to graduate university before the world ends.

“How's my favorite person?” Ten asks Yuta, draping himself over the kitchen counter and cupping his chin in his hand. He is in entirely too good a mood.

“I imagine Jungwoo’s doing just fine, a little sore maybe,” Yuta replies as he pokes halfheartedly at some reheated stir fry.

Ten snorts. “Fair. Where's Taeyong?”

“Your other favorite?” Yuta jabs a thumb at the window. “Windexing every glass surface he can find. Again.”

“Fantastic,” says Ten, and he looks like he means it.

Why does he get to nonchalantly complicate Yuta’s life by ordering robots off the internet and then reap karmic rewards? What is Yuta doing wrong? Objectively, he thinks he’s a good person. He volunteers at the local animal shelter on weekends and always holds the door open for anyone behind him. Ten has no problem letting the door close in Yuta’s face even when his arms are laden with groceries. This whole situation is unfair. In fact, the universe can suck Yuta’s entire di—

“Language! Taeyong’s here, too, you know.” Ten slaps a palm over Yuta’s mouth, immediately causing him to sputter in disgust because he doesn't know where that hand has been. Or, well, he actually has too good of an idea of where that hand has been and he wants it absolutely nowhere near his mouth.

Yuta hadn't realized he was voicing his thoughts aloud, but apparently he's not even allowed to do that anymore if Taeyong comes in.

“We have run out of Windex,” Taeyong announces. He lifts the empty bottle as proof, expression serious.

Yuta looks at the window, which is absolutely sparkling, and at the TV, which looks just-bought, and says, “You know what, I know you like cleaning up and all, but I think you can take a break for now.”

“It’s okay, for real,” adds Ten. “You've done more than enough.”

Taeyong plunks the empty bottle down on the countertop and regards the window with a degree of longing. “What will I do, then? How may I assist you?”

Yuta considers telling him to do nothing because it makes him marginally uncomfortable that Taeyong has spent the past couple weeks cleaning the apartment within an inch of its dusty life sans compensation—and that's dumb, because a) Taeyong was engineered to be helpful above all else and b) what use would an android have for money, anyway?

Then, Ten interrupts. “Can you cook?”

“I am equipped with a fairly extensive recipe catalogue, so given that there are some ingredients provided, yes,” says Taeyong.

“Then you can do that.” Ten examines the soggy stir fry that Yuta has given up on pushing around. “We could use some help in that area.”

Taeyong nods vigorously and heads for the fridge.

“Oh, so now we’re letting him play with fire?” Yuta whispers.

Ten doesn't look particularly worried. “The alternative is letting _me_ , so yeah.”

This is a decent point.

Within just a couple hours, Taeyong has produced an impressive array of dishes and laid them out along the counter, each one looking too perfect to be real. Ten and Yuta’s fridge is not especially well-stocked on any given day, but it seems like what ingredients they did have were more than enough for a sizeable meal. Ten’s eyes bulge a little as he takes in the assortment; Yuta would probably be lying if he said that his own eyes weren’t bulging, too.

Taeyong, meanwhile, demurely wipes off his hands with a rag and assesses the food critically. “Is this satisfactory?”

“Satisfactory?” echoes Ten. “This is amazing.” Yuta finds himself nodding in automatic agreement. Maybe it's because neither of the two are fantastic at adulting (and they will own up to it), but Taeyong’s proficiency with things widely considered to be basic living skills has him taken aback. He thinks he might be starting to understand the rationale behind the nation’s burgeoning demand for home robotics.

They eat dinner with Taeyong sitting next to them, which is odd for Yuta not only because he's suddenly adjusting to the loss of the five-meter buffer the android typically gives him but because it makes the whole affair seem really… friendly. As if they're actually just three housemates enjoying each other's company or something.

Although Taeyong doesn't need to eat, much like he doesn't need to breathe or blink or sleep, it turns out that he can. If he wants, that is. Ten urges him to try some of the chicken on the grounds that it would be a shame if he didn't get to sample his own great cooking, and Taeyong surprises them both by gamely shoving a sizeable piece in his mouth.

“So?” prods Ten, leaning in. He’s seemingly fascinated by the way Taeyong chews, cheeks stuffed to the brim.

Taeyong swallows and looks somewhat shocked. “You experience this sensation on a regular basis?”

“Yeah,” Yuta answers, amused. “We kind of have to in order to survive.”

“Of course,” says Taeyong instantly. “Well, it's. It's.” He frowns. “I don't know how to express this feeling adequately with my preprogrammed vocabulary. It's better than excellent.”

“How about ‘really fucking good?’” offers Yuta, ignoring Ten’s affronted expression at his choice of words.

“Yes, that sounds right. Such informal language does seem to convey a stronger emotion,” agrees Taeyong after thinking it over briefly. He contorts his mouth like he's trying to whistle. “Really… fucking good.”

A laugh bubbles up out of Yuta’s throat without warning. To hear Taeyong swearing, especially with such a stone face, is nothing short of bizarre.

Taeyong’s gaze snaps up, startled. He probably hasn't heard Yuta laugh before, which makes sense considering that Yuta has been in generally poor spirits since his unboxing, but right now Yuta’s grinning with like thirty teeth on display, totally unrestrained. A beat passes while his system presumably works to make sense of this new development, and then, hesitantly, he smiles in answer.

 

+

 

“What are you reading?”

Yuta jumps. He's stretched out on the couch with a volume of One Piece (naturally), and Taeyong is standing behind the couch with his head bent upside down over Yuta’s own.

He's been a lot more openly curious with Yuta lately. A lot more willing to wiggle into his personal space, too. Yuta supposes that he could tell Taeyong off if he so desired, demand reprieve and make him back up a bit. Or a lot. However, it takes far less energy to sit and mind his business than it takes to snap at Taeyong, and so in the interest of minimizing ATP expenditure while the summer heat wave steadily worsens, Yuta has decided to refrain.

“It’s part of a series called One Piece,” he answers, wondering how he should go about explaining the story. “It's, uh. Pretty cool.”

Taeyong squints at the pages. “I cannot decipher the meaning of these characters.”

“That's because it's written in Japanese,” says Yuta somewhat derisively. “What, your system doesn't come with built-in translation capabilities?”

“Not as of yet.”

“Well, thank God I can still seek refuge from you somewhere,” mutters Yuta, flipping a page. A couple weeks ago, his tone would have been dead serious, but now his voice lacks the edge. In all honesty, it sounds like the way he would harp lightheartedly on anyone else.

Taeyong, for his part, is beginning to take Yuta’s sometimes acerbic humor in stride as he catalogues it in whatever mental folder he reserves for personality data. “I suppose you’ll have to keep suffering as long as you’re in Korea, then.”

Once the words register, Yuta snaps his manga shut and stares in disbelief. “Did you just make a joke?”

“I attempted to, yes.”

Yuta is silent.

Within seconds, Taeyong has crossed the side of the couch and is peering at him plaintively, now right side up. “Was it uncalled for? Should I refrain in the future? I’m sorry, I thought it matched the mood.” The gears of his brain are whirring once again, Yuta can tell.

“No, it did,” says Yuta, recovering. “It was just the right thing to say, actually.” _It made you seem fully human for a second_.

“Oh, good.” Taeyong’s brow relaxes, tightened mouth slackens; he's relieved. For what seems like the millionth time in the past few weeks, Yuta’s a little awed by the verisimilitude of his facial expressions.

Just as Yuta’s about to return to the page he left off on, Taeyong opens his mouth again. “Do you have more?”

“Of these? Yeah, tons.”

“Can I see them?”

“Why? You apparently can't read Japanese.”

“But you can,” says Taeyong thoughtfully, and Yuta sighs.

“Funny how that works, it being my native language and all.”

“Yes, but.” Taeyong considers his words for a minute as if building up to something. “What I mean is, this is something from your home country that clearly makes you happy. As such, I am attempting to understand it better.”

Oh. The sentiment is unexpectedly kind of heartwarming? Like, just a bit.

“Well, follow me, I guess,” says Yuta after a moment of mental debate, swinging his legs off the couch and heading for his room. Taeyong stands up, brushes his knees off, and trails after him obediently.

He’s acutely aware that he has never before allowed Taeyong in here; for all the bot’s new confidence, he has kept out of Yuta’s room in quiet recognition of his desire for privacy. It's not that Yuta has anything particularly incriminating inside, just that he’d always been uncomfortable with the idea of Taeyong seeing the scattered components of his interests, his clothes, his family photos. It felt too much like being complicit with some government entity spying through your webcam.

Truth be told, Yuta has no idea when he started to be okay with this, but he supposes a lot of things are changing lately.

“Welcome to the den,” announces Yuta, swinging the door open. “Here are my babies.” He gestures to the long shelf running parallel to his headboard that brims with volumes of One Piece, the spine of each one straight and glossy.

Taeyong stands somewhat awkwardly behind him, taking in the general clutter. The room is tiny, just like the rest of the apartment, its wallpaper peeling in places and carpet shabby. But it’s lived in, too, the evidence of which is abundant, from the impressive manga collection (there's a ton more, carefully stacked in boxes next to the bed) to the cluster of pictures featuring Yuta’s parents and sisters tacked to the wall.

“Thank you,” says Taeyong eventually. “For showing me.”

It's a pretty weird thing to thank someone for, so Yuta shrugs dismissively and says, “Sure.” But he thinks he gets it, maybe. Among the messy jumble of shit accumulated in this room are broken-off little parts of Yuta himself, and he didn't need to showcase that, but he did anyway.

He doesn't talk about home much these days unless someone asks, but he feels oddly as if Taeyong can see right through him with his laser beam eyes or whatever. It’s not that living in Korea hasn’t been enjoyable thus far; Yuta is grateful for the opportunity to study here and meet people with whom he never would have crossed paths otherwise (even if those people have no sense of self-preservation and order android housemates online like actual fucking idiots). He likes it here, really, but every so often Yuta finds himself missing Osaka unexpectedly deeply, the feeling burrowing cold and hard into his chest.

And so when Taeyong tentatively waves a hand in the direction of a photo of a much younger Yuta posing with a childhood friend next to a cherry blossom tree, curiosity welling up and spilling out, Yuta figures he won't mind answering a few questions too much. Sometimes, it's nice to take a minute to remember.

 

+

 

RECEIVED 10:02 PM

_Hey im sleeping at jungwoos again_

_should i ask jung jae to come babysit lol_

 

SENT 10:03 PM

_nah it’s fine_

 

RECEIVED 10:03 PM

_u sure_

_u know this means youll be alone with the big scary android again_

 

SENT 10:03 PM

_ya im ok_

 

RECEIVED 10:03 PM

_Omg ur really warming up to him huh!!!_

 

RECEIVED 10:04 PM

 _im_ _so proud_

_u have grown so much .._

 

SENT 10:04 PM

_what does that even mean im older than you_

 

RECEIVED 10:05 PM

_nothing im just happy <3 _

_good night yuta hyung <3 _

 

SENT 10:05 PM

_wtf who is this and what have you done with ten_

 

SENT 10:09

_????_

_did sm…... finally strike after all..._

 

SENT 10:35 PM

_if no one comes home tmrw im ordering roses for ur funeral bouquet <3 _

 

+

 

Although it’s been nearly a month since Taeyong’s arrival, Yuta can count the number of nights he’s spent alone with the bot on one hand. Most nights, he stays out in the living room while Yuta and Ten retire to their respective beds, never asleep, just quiet. Yuta doesn’t really know what Taeyong does out there—watches the city lights, maybe. He can’t imagine there’s much else to do to pass the time.

This time, like the other few instances Ten has left Yuta to fend for himself, Yuta shuts his door tightly around midnight to discourage intrusion and flops down spread-eagle on top of the sheets. It’s far too hot to even consider sleeping underneath a blanket. He stares up at his ceiling in the dark, cheap cotton sticking to his bare back, and tries to blank out his brain, but it refuses to be quieted tonight. Instead, it runs like a motor, bouncing from thought to thought, face to face. Taeyong’s face, pale and blank. Open, inquisitive. Smiling. Frowning. Still.

Even after all this time, it’s hard to wrap his mind around the reality. Yuta sees Taeyong every day and has spoken to him on countless occasions, heard his voice, met his eyes. Lived with him. And yet.

He wonders how Taeyong came to be—if he was welded together on a bench like the wreckage of someone’s totaled car, if his skin feels as smooth as it looks, if there’s some kind of pacemaker underneath that beats like a real heart. If there is anything, a preprogrammed order or engineered emotion in Taeyong’s skinny chest that could move him to actually kill a person.

In all honesty, Yuta has no reason to trust an android with a dubious moral compass, but these days, he finds it harder and harder to believe that Taeyong could hurt anyone, ever. Why would a killer bother to ask Yuta about his manga collection or make kimchi jjigae using his shitty stove? Why would he hang around a cramped little apartment in the middle of summer just polishing the table and watching daytime television when he had every opportunity to make a move?

The more Yuta reflects on it, the more ridiculous it sounds. He closes his door at night but the thing doesn’t even have a goddamn lock. If Taeyong really wanted, he could have easily entered in the middle of the night and taken Yuta out any number of times. Lying there, sweating onto his sheets, he’s struck by a strange sort of _fuck it_ attitude, a feeling that it doesn’t matter. If something terrible was going to happen to him, it would have happened by now.

Yuta swings open his bedroom door and peers around the corner, struggling to make out shapes in the dark.

“Taeyong?” he calls. His voice sounds too loud in the sticky, warm silence.

“Yes?” comes a reply from somewhere near the window.

Yuta feels along the walls until Taeyong’s silhouette comes into view, then the faintest contours of his features, dim and gray and grainy in the wash of late night city lights. Perpetually bright eyes and tilted head—Yuta can picture it without seeing.

“Is something wrong?” Taeyong asks, confused and rightfully so. Yuta has never once attempted to speak to him past sundown, much less at one in the morning. In fact, Yuta has never sought him out like this, period.

 _There’s a first time for everything_ , he supposes, _like androids washing up on your kitchen floor,_  and for some reason wants to laugh even though it’s not really funny.

“Nothing is wrong,” he answers, remembering seconds late that he’s been asked a question. “I was… I couldn’t sleep.”

“Oh,” says Taeyong. One hand is curled around the window frame like he’s trying to ground himself. “Is that common for you?”

“Not really. Guess it’s just too hot of a night.”

“I see,” says Taeyong, still confused.

“I don’t,” Yuta tells him. “It’s dark as shit in here.”

A few moments pass before Taeyong huffs out a soft breath, a sound that Yuta has come to recognize through weeks of experimental jokes as his own subdued version of a laugh. “That was clever.”

“You don’t have to stroke my ego just because you live here now,” says Yuta, lilting, “but since Ten doesn’t do it often enough, I guess you may as well.” He thinks Taeyong may have smiled at this, but he’s not sure, what with his eyes still adjusting to the darkness.

They share a moment of quiet. Yuta becomes acutely aware of the sound of his own breathing, which is always a distinctly uncomfortable realization but more so when the only other person you’re with doesn’t need to breathe at all. Aside from that, Yuta is surprised to find that the lack of conversation is somewhat peaceful, companionable, even.

He squints out beyond the glass, looking for whatever it is that has Taeyong so engrossed. There shouldn’t be much; the view from their apartment window is lackluster, to put it kindly. Aside from the 24-hour convenience store a little ways down the block and a few trees, there’s nothing in particular to observe. Yuta doesn’t understand why Taeyong appears glued to it.

And then he remembers that there’s nothing else for him do while everyone else sleeps, that Taeyong hasn’t ever actually been outside before, either, and promptly feels guilty.

“I like looking outside because I don’t know what it’s like,” Taeyong says suddenly, as if he can read Yuta’s mind. Yuta’s still not entirely convinced he can’t. “It helps me picture how it might feel. To experience that.”

“Is this some kind of sensory adaptation exercise?” says Yuta, half-serious.

“No.” Taeyong’s hand uncurls from the window frame and drops slowly back to his side. “I just wonder.”

Yuta doesn’t know what to say to that. But it’s okay, because Taeyong doesn’t expect him to, and that complete lack of expectation or judgement is sort of freeing. Instead, he breathes in as big a lungful of humid July air as he can manage and imagines how he would feel if he had spent his entire life in a box, only getting to watch as other people moved about freely. It doesn’t sit well.

Taeyong’s eyes gleam in the blackness when he leans a bit closer. “You seem troubled.”

“Well, so do you,” fires back Yuta, suddenly very tired. “Stop thinking so loud, I can hear it.”

“Humans, to the best of my knowledge, are unable to—”

“Not literally,” Yuta interrupts with a tinge of exasperation. For all the progress that Taeyong has made recently in regards to understanding humor, he still falls rather short when it comes to figurative expressions. That’s something they’ll have to work on.

Yuta turns away from the window and rubs at the nape of his neck, remembering abruptly that he’s not wearing a shirt and feeling uncharacteristically awkward about it. Exposed, like a wire without casing. “I’m going back to bed. Night.”

And since his vision has finally adjusted, he can make out Taeyong’s features decently now, visually map the movement of his ninety-degree angle jaw as he wishes Yuta good night in response.

It’s nearing 2 AM when Yuta finally drifts off to sleep. He leaves the door open.

 

+

 

RECEIVED 2:16 AM

_i prefer tulips :(_

 

+

 

When Sicheng returns from China the following weekend, he naturally wants to see the android that everyone's talking so much about. He materializes at their door on Sunday afternoon with Jaehyun in tow, eyes sweeping the living room eagerly as soon as he's let inside.

“Where,” is the first thing he says.

Yuta closes the door and leans against it, crossing his arms with a downturned mouth like he's in second grade. “I’m doing well, thank you, Sicheng. How was your trip to China? You had fun? That's great. I’m really happy to see you, too.”

Sicheng glances back at Yuta briefly and elaborates. “Where is he? The robot.”

Jaehyun cracks a smile. “Your favorite dongsaeng.”

“Yeah. Even if he doesn't love me back,” agrees Yuta mournfully. And then, giving into Sicheng’s demand because it’s essentially coded into his nature at this point, he says, “I think Taeyong is in Ten’s room.”

“Taeyong?” Sicheng asks.

“The robot’s name,” clarifies Jaehyun before Yuta gets the chance. “Let me guess, cleaning again?”

Yuta shrugs. “Ten’s room is a semi permanent disaster zone, so it's likely. He spends most of his time in there if he's not watching TV or cooking.”

Sicheng’s eyes go round as coins. “Whoa, he can cook, too? Seriously? I wanna meet him.”

“I am,” begins Yuta with no small amount of dramatic flair, “so lucky to have friends who value my unique charms so greatly. Friends who make me their number one priority. Who—”

Sicheng disappears into Ten’s room before Yuta can finish, leaving him to trail off mid-sentence resignedly. Jaehyun gives him a sympathetic clap on the shoulder and goes to grab a water bottle out of the fridge. Poor dude sweats buckets, so the apartment’s muggy internal climate is especially awful for him. He’s in the middle of chugging hard, Adam’s apple bobbing like he’s sponsored by Pocari Sweat, when Sicheng and Taeyong appear.

“Hyung!” Sicheng’s entire face is illuminated with excitement. “Taeyong is so cool.”

“Right?” Jaehyun chimes in, mopping at the nape of his neck with one hand.

“It is nice to meet you,” says Taeyong, nodding at Sicheng. And at Jaehyun, “Nice to see you again.”

“He's polite!” marvels Sicheng.

Yuta looks up to heaven and wonders how many more times he’ll have to endure this gushing routine. Everyone seems to take an immediate liking to Taeyong, amazed by the sophistication of his design and function. Then again, Yuta shouldn't really complain too much when he himself is regularly rendered speechless by Taeyong despite seeing the android every day.

“Yeah, yeah, he's the absolute pinnacle of modern bioengineering,” pronounces Yuta, echoing Ten’s fervent defense of SM that had launched this very situation into existence what feels like ages ago. “Go sit down so he can chill with the deep clean for a second.”

Sicheng shoots him a questioning look as the group relocates to the couch, which is frankly not even close to being large enough for four people but will just have to do. “Are you asking him to rest?”

“Well, I know they technically don't need to,” begins Yuta.

“Not that.” Sicheng peers at him, then at Taeyong, who has assumed his typical plywood-stiff sitting position. “It’s just kind of considerate. Jaehyun said you hated him?”

Yuta watches sort of helplessly as Taeyong’s face falls and the kicked puppy look he can't stand emerges. “Jung Jaehyun, why would you say that? I don't hate him!”

“Really,” say Jaehyun and Sicheng in sync, the former with one raised eyebrow and the latter with pursed lips.

“Yes! I mean, no. I mean, I don't hate him,” stumbles Yuta. “Taeyong, I don't hate you.” He doesn’t know where this is coming from, why he’s bothering to spare Taeyong’s feelings. Nothing has made any sense in this place since Ten submitted that application.

The declaration works to wipe the unbearably sad look off the android’s face, but to Yuta’s great frustration, it also makes the other two exchange a look he can't quite put a name to. “Leave me alone,” he groans.

“Doyoung will be disappointed to hear that he's lost an ally in the upcoming species war,” Jaehyun informs him.

“Like I give a shit about what Doyoung thinks,” scoffs Yuta, shoving the fact that he had at one point been inclined to agree with Doyoung on this front firmly out of his mind.

“Hmm,” is all he gets in reply.

Thankfully, Sicheng diverts attention away from this subject by starting to grill Taeyong on the things he can do. While Jaehyun had focused on the android’s technical side during their first meeting, Sicheng (an arts major! a comrade!) steers clear of any detailed terminology and instead begins to ask things like, “Can you shoot stuff out of your eyes?” and “Are you full of, like, wires inside? Will you explode if you get caught in the rain?” and worst of all, “Could you kill Yuta hyung if you wanted?”

“Sicheng!” Yuta protests.

“I just want to know,” defends Sicheng, the very picture of innocence aside from the mischievous glint in his pretty eyes. “It’s important information.”

Yuta tries not to dwell too much on the idea, not least because he had spent a significant portion of Taeyong’s first couple weeks here hiding out in his room in abject fear of exactly that. “I can't believe you're out to get me,” he says instead. “After all the love I’ve given you.”

“I didn't ask for any,” says Sicheng, blasé, causing Yuta to clutch at his wounded heart. At this, Jaehyun looks up from his phone (probably texting Doyoung, revolting) and snickers. Yuta reaches around Sicheng’s back to elbow him sharply for it.

Taeyong observes each of these interactions with the same hyper sharpened focus he applies to everything he does. Says, “The relationship that you all share appears emotionally fulfilling.”

Jaehyun offers a slightly puzzled smile. “I guess? That's what friendship is.”

“That is one perspective,” nods Taeyong. “However, I have not yet found a suitable full definition.”

“It’s not something you really define,” says Yuta. “For example. I adore Sicheng with my whole heart.”

“And I tolerate Yuta hyung,” adds Sicheng.

Yuta brushes it off. “Yeah, and that's the crux of our dynamic. There's no point trying to define it in stricter terms or… or measure emotional fulfillment.”

“We put up with each other and mostly like it,” Jaehyun says. “Basically.”

For a long time, Taeyong sits with his lips pressed into a thin line and stares at nothing, seemingly allowing their ineloquent explanation to marinate in his head. “You are happy to be around each other,” he concludes.

When no one contradicts him, he nods to himself. “Then that’s it.”

“What?” asks Jaehyun. He looks about as confused as Yuta feels, which is to say, very.

“I was conceived to reach the optimal stage of cohabitation with humans.” Taeyong’s large eyes are glossed over, distant. “But over the course of the past several weeks, I have reached the conclusion that it is impossible to experience that optimal satisfaction in only my presence. The interaction lacks the joy born of human connection.”

Yuta still doesn't follow, not entirely. He twists around to get a better look at the android, who remains perched rigidly on the opposite end of the too-small couch. “Okay, but what does that mean?”

“Despite the level of biomechanical complexity evident in my system,” says Taeyong, “without that connection, this project is an inherent failure.”

It takes Yuta a moment to realize that the project Taeyong is referring to is himself.

A team of incredibly brilliant people had somewhere, somehow—miraculously, one might even say—managed to create artificial consciousness in a carefully constructed shell of a body. Self-awareness where it had no reason to exist. Now, the product of that effort, able to ponder the purpose of his own existence, had effectively deemed his own creation meaningless.

Yuta can't even muster up the dry humor to laugh at himself for thinking all this, empathizing, even, when it seems so sad. Judging from Jaehyun and Sicheng’s matching somber expressions, they're thinking more or less the same.

Even after the conversation picks back up with Jaehyun launching into a mildly embarrassing story about Doyoung, the remnants of an unsettlingly grim mood linger. It's in the thick, warm air, in the walls, in all of their eyes—Taeyong’s included. It sits on their shoulders, heavy.

Yuta wonders if Taeyong is upset by the revelation, if he can experience those thorny, twisted, decidedly human emotions to begin with. If he resents whoever made him for giving him the ability to be burdened by his own intelligence.

That, he thinks, would be the most miserable twist of all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much to everyone who has read the first chapter and left lovely comments hearts out for all of u ;_____;

They don't talk about it again. Yuta feels like it's something he shouldn't have heard, doesn't want to keep turning it over in his mind because this whole AI thing was hard enough to deal with when he was just afraid of it. Now, the back of his mouth smacks of some muted cocktail of empathy and sadness and even a little anger at someone who could be so reckless as to create life and then leave it on its own. Maybe it's misdirected, but he doesn't know who else to be angry at.

Taeyong hasn't verbalized any of his introspection since, possibly because he’d witnessed how it had affected everyone else. He returns to spraying Windex and Febreeze everywhere with a burning fervor despite Yuta and Ten both telling him they didn't need any extra cleaning done weeks ago. It seems to calm him down, though, so they leave him be.

Although Yuta’s trying to erase the conversation from memory, his behavior changes, too—enough that Ten comments on it, which is saying a lot, because these days Ten spends most of his time on the eleventh floor buried in his new boyfriend (or the other way around—Yuta has no idea and he's certainly never going to ask).

“You're a lot nicer to Taeyong these days,” declares Ten, lazily toweling his soaking wet hair. He's fresh out of the shower and not making much of an effort to dry off, despite the water dripping all over his clothes. Since it's still sweltering outside, they’ve started employing any measure they can think of to cool down.

“No,” says Yuta, deflecting. “I've just given up on hiding from him.”

Ten shakes his head, sending dozens of water droplets flying. “You’re definitely nicer. You don't mind being near him anymore and you answer his questions without griping about it.” He pauses. “Yesterday, you even translated a chapter of your manga for him. That was super weird.”

Yuta gives a half-shrug. “It’s a crime to be nice now?”

“No, but the one-eighty you’ve done in the past week is definitely suspect,” says Ten, eyes narrowing. “You _smiled_ at him last night.”

“I smile at everyone!”

“Sure, but you never used to smile at Taeyong,” Ten insists. “You hated him on sight.”

“I did,” agrees Yuta.

“So?"

“So what?”

Ten huffs. “ _So_ , what changed?”

“I told you, I’m just used to him now.” Training his gaze pointedly on his phone screen, Yuta refreshes the Naver homepage tab he's had open for the past ten minutes just to have something to do with his hands.

“I don’t buy it. There's something going on here,” Ten accuses.

Yuta refreshes the tab again and again mindlessly. “I don’t know about that, but there’s something going on in Jungwoo’s room for sure. Why don’t you drop this interrogation and go look into that instead?”

“Believe me, I will,” says Ten, chin high and haughty. “But don't think I’m gonna forget about this.”

“Wouldn't dream of it,” Yuta calls as he leaves.

Normally, Yuta’s a bit more subtle when he wants to change the topic of conversation, but this is one subject he really doesn't feel equipped to deal with. Ten hadn't been around when Taeyong dumped a boatload of existential angst into the atmosphere and effectively pulled the switch on any remaining desire to be mean that Yuta could have harbored. Wouldn't get it if Yuta tried to explain. How could he continue going out of his way to be cold and distant to someone who already felt like their being alive was pointless? Yuta is a lot of things, but he's not that callous.

Still, he has no idea how he would begin to describe any of that. So for the time being, he's going to continue playing dumb even if the act is transparent—it sounds a hell of a lot better than verbally confirming that he’s succumbed to playing along with Ten’s starry-eyed AI fantasies.

After the sound of Ten’s footsteps down the hall recedes, Yuta regards the Naver search box for a long minute, then types in “sm nct127” and hits enter.

As expected, there’s an abundance of articles about the topic. He taps on a few and skims the opening paragraphs lazily. They’re mostly in praise of SM’s adventurous new project, complete with photos and interviews with the head engineers. Yuta scrolls a bit further, finding a statement from some bigshot executive talking about their recent staggered launch initiative, the program Ten had signed up for.

The initiative turns out to be much smaller and more selective than Yuta had assumed; the total number of androids released to hosts in the Seoul metropolitan area is a meager fifty. However, each one has a different appearance, which makes this a rather ambitious launch. The range of models is also grouped together in lines: there’s the NCT127 line that Taeyong is part of, the all-female RV814, and enough others that Yuta’s head starts spinning from the list of names alone. The gallery of HD pictures included clearly demonstrates that every single one is as realistic, as masterfully crafted as the one aggressively dusting his couch just a few meters away.

Yuta closes the tab and puts down his phone, feeling a bit dizzy. If he understands correctly, this means that for all the androids currently circulating Seoul, there exists only one Taeyong, and he’s right here. For whatever reason, Yuta had previously assumed that there were already hundreds of identical Taeyongs being mass-produced and distributed across the city, a sea of factory clones—but no, there’s just this one. Wholly unique, for the moment, at least.

He doesn’t know why it makes him feel sort of special to be among the few people who have ever met Taeyong, shaping his learning and growth and accumulation of personality traits simply by coexisting with him. It’s stupid, obviously, but Yuta’s been thinking a lot of stupid things lately.

“You’re staring into space,” says Taeyong, approaching Yuta with a feather duster in hand. His brow, normally smooth as silicone, is creased.

“Yeah, well. Lots of important stuff goes on in this head,” Yuta mutters. The thick layer of sarcastic self-importance and bright smile that usually accompany a statement like this are noticeably absent. Taeyong peers at him for a moment, then whacks lightly him on the shoulder with the duster.

Yuta startles. “What was that for?”

“I apologize if my actions have offended or hurt you,” says Taeyong immediately. “I have observed Ten doing this to you frequently and it usually results in one or both of you laughing. Therefore, I performed the same action in order to achieve a similar result.”

Blinking, Yuta digests this. What he’s hearing is that Ten is exerting his horrible influence without even being physically present. Sounds about right.

“Stop apologizing all the time, it's annoying,” he tells Taeyong with a slight sigh, gathering up the dirty dishes left behind from breakfast and rising to dump them in the sink. “I was thinking too hard, anyway.”

“I could tell,” says Taeyong, then lights up as he’s struck by a realization. “Oh! It’s like when you told me that my thoughts were loud the other night. I now understand what you meant.”

“Yeah,” says Yuta, soaping up a plate. “But for future reference, Ten is not the best role model. You shouldn’t hold him up as the gold standard of human behavior.”

Taeyong considers this. “You seem fond enough of him, though.”

As he turns on the faucet to rinse the plate clean, Yuta glances over his shoulder at where Taeyong stands. He looks almost doll-like with the massive feather duster still clutched in one hand, oversized shirt slipping down to reveal a pair of pale, jutting collarbones.

Wait a minute.

That’s Yuta’s fucking shirt.

Yuta pictures in his mind’s eye the way that Ten laughs when he knows he’s _won_ , head tipped back and eyes sparkling. “You’re right, and it’s absolutely tragic.”

 

+

 

RECEIVED 1:01 AM

_U up ?_

 

SENT 1:01 AM

_yeah why_

 

RECEIVED 1:01 AM

_just letting u know_

_I won't forget_

 

SENT 1:02 AM

_omg ur so creepy good NIGHT ten_

 

+

 

Taeyong is attracted to the promise of outdoors like a moth to a flame. While it's possible that there's something hardwired into his brain that makes him gravitate towards windows and nature documentaries, Yuta thinks it more likely that he just wants a change of scenery. After all, he supposes, android or not, anyone would go a bit stir-crazy after being cooped up in a tiny space for so long. He himself has hardly left the apartment except to attend to the occasional errand.

Taeyong’s fascination with the world beyond their walls hasn’t escaped Ten’s notice, either. Yuta can tell he feels bad about it, but the thing is, the logistics are sort of complicated.

The reason they haven’t yet taken Taeyong outside is a WARNING! section in his user guide describing the dangers of exposing your NCT127-TY to temperatures greater than 32 degrees Celsius for extended amounts of time. Listed effects range from fried circuits to total shutdown, the exact meaning of which has not been outlined in detail but sounds pretty alarming. And unfortunately for them, Seoul has been averaging almost 36 degrees for the past few weeks.

“We’re going to get around this,” says Ten, squinting at the guide like he's trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle. “There's gotta be some way.”

“Who even makes an android that can't withstand hot temperatures and releases it in the middle of summer,” complains Yuta.

Ten makes a face. “I know. I wonder if there's some customer feedback board I can use to whine at them about it—wait.”

“You have an idea?”

“Yeah, hold on.” Ten unlocks his phone and taps away for a minute, then grins, holding the phone up to display the screen. “A discussion forum for people currently housing SM droids. There's a bunch of them floating around right now, which means that someone has to have taken theirs outside, right?”

“We probably aren't the first ones to be curious,” agrees Yuta.

Scrolling downwards, Ten starts reading out the name of each post pinned for discussion. “Androids and food… top tips for productive cohabitation… someone even asked ‘Do these things come with an AUX cord?’”

Yuta snickers at the idea of plugging a cord into Taeyong’s nose or something and blasting Melon’s top twenty.

“Oh, here we go,” says Ten after a moment. “Taking your android outside.”

“What's it say?”

“In order to prevent overheating,” Ten begins, then furrows his brow. “Uh.”

“Let me see,” says Yuta, snatching the phone. “My Korean’s better than yours, anyway.” Ten sticks his tongue out at him but doesn't refute the assertion.

The post is a little tricky to decipher. If the awestruck comments are to be trusted, the clever but confusingly described steps to achieving heat resistance they're following were written by some high school aged robotics prodigy who goes by the username _mochisung_. (“If he's such a genius, couldn't he have broken it down simpler?” says Yuta, snippy.)

But after half an hour of messy diagram drawing, they crack the mystery of how to program Taeyong’s controls to not spontaneously combust under the scorching sun: there apparently exists a low power setting in between the usual states of full power and total inactivity that can be activated by adjusting switches located underneath Taeyong’s skin.

“Well, how are we supposed to get under his literal skin?” demands Yuta. “This sounds like a scene from a bad horror flick.”

Ten hums, considering it. “How about we just ask him?”

“Come again?” Yuta says, disbelieving, but Ten is already calling Taeyong over to explain the need for alterations to protect his circuits, and just like that, Taeyong agrees.

“I want to go outside,” he says earnestly, then carefully lies face down on the ground and hikes up the back of his shirt. Yuta watches, confused and dumbstruck, as a rectangular panel of skin extending halfway down his spine slides neatly to the side, revealing a sleek chrome interface of dials and sliders.

“What the fuck,” says Yuta, with feeling.

He stares at the curve of Taeyong’s cheek, currently squished into their freshly vacuumed rug, and tries to imagine what it might look like underneath. Wires and skeletal framework? Glistening chrome like his back? Barely ten seconds go by before Yuta scrunches his eyes shut on the images, deciding that he doesn't want to know.

Leaning back on his hands, he elects to let Ten do all the fiddling and tuning. After all, Ten was the one to bring Taeyong here in the first place. Yuta is more or less still a bystander in the scheme of things.

And so a couple quiet minutes go by as Ten follows the steps on their diagram. He’s focused, breathing slow and shallow, and Yuta realizes that his own breath is just as measured.

It feels almost as if Taeyong is undergoing some delicate operation and they're in charge of making sure it goes smoothly. Yuta pictures Ten as a real surgeon wielding a glinting scalpel and immediately shudders.

When Ten manages to successfully activate low power mode, it turns out that for all that hushed procedure, this setting only makes Taeyong look sleepy and refrain from speaking unless asked a question. His eyelids flutter at half-mast every few minutes like he's overdue for a nap, but other than that, nothing much appears different; most of the operational changes are likely invisible on the surface. Taeyong seals up his controls once it's done.

Prior to heading out, Yuta appraises him skeptically and stuffs an ice pack down the back of his shirt, taping it down over the panel just to be safe, and that's that. They're ready.

(“That's kinda dumb, hyung,” says Ten. “His back is just lumpy now.”

“It's a precaution, okay?”)

They take the elevator down, which in itself appears to be an adventure for Taeyong if the circular shape of his mouth is anything to go by, and make their way through the lobby. Yuta feels an odd tension mounting in his chest, bubbly and nervous as if he’s the one about to be faced with a foreign experience.

 _We’re just going to the store_ , he thinks, annoyed at himself for getting worked up over nothing.

And yet when Yuta pushes open the front doors, he sneaks a glance at Taeyong because he needs to see the expression Taeyong makes when he first steps out. If the elevator was exciting, then this must be an entirely different universe.

He's not disappointed. Taeyong looks positively wonderstruck, jaw slack, lips parted, irises amber in the light.

Yuta jerks his head in the opposite direction as soon as he becomes aware that he's staring, but Taeyong hasn't noticed. His gaze is glued on the open expanse of sky above them, transfixed by the winking sun.

“Do you like it?” Ten asks. “So far, I mean.”

“Yes,” answers Taeyong, his voice sounding far away. “I really do.”

As he walks with them, his steps are slow and careful, like he's in a china shop and afraid to break anything around him. Yuta and Ten humor him by taking the long way around to the convenience store and pointing out different things they see along the way, playing up the novelty.

Yuta hadn't realized how accustomed he'd gotten to Taeyong’s never-ending questions until they're surrounded by new things and he doesn't have a word to offer about any of them. However, the enduring look of awe on his face still says plenty.

Subconsciously, Yuta commits it to memory.

 

+

 

( **OPEN FORUM** )

 

A new member has joined! Welcome, @95scorpio!

 

mochisung: welcome ^^

 

95scorpio: @mochisung thanks i have a question tho. how tf did u get an android anyway aren't u like 16

 

_mochisung is typing…_

 

mochisung: @95scorpio I used my mom’s info lol

 

+

 

“What are you doing in here?” asks Yuta, stopping short in the doorway to his room. The question comes out significantly sharper than intended.

Taeyong’s hands jump away from the photo collage on Yuta’s wall as if burned. The expression on his face when he turns to meet Yuta’s stare, lids lowered like he’s waiting to be chastised, is enough to wrack Yuta’s chest with a hot wave of guilt. It’s the goddamn kicked puppy look, this time turned up to level 20 at least.

“I wanted to see these pictures again,” says Taeyong quietly.

Yuta sighs, releasing all the tense air in his lungs with one whooshing breath. “Okay. Sorry I snapped at you. Try not to come in here without me, though.” The apology tastes a little weird in his mouth; he’s still adjusting to keeping himself in check. If this had happened a week and a half ago, before Taeyong had said his whole piece about failure, Yuta would undoubtedly have had a lineup of barbed comments to vocalize instead.

“Understood,” Taeyong responds immediately. “But I have a question.”

“Yeah? Let’s hear it.”

“You didn’t object to my entering this room with you present, yet became alarmed when I came in of my own accord. Why?”

Why, indeed. Yuta takes a moment to collect his thoughts before answering, trying to phrase them as simply as possible while also cushioning it a bit. “Because… when I let you in here the first time, it was on my own terms. You saw what I let you see. I’m not comfortable with the idea of you going through anything you want without me around.”

This is a semi-truth. Yuta really is uncomfortable letting anyone hang around in his room without him there to monitor the situation in his peripheral vision, simply because some things are private. Not the manga collection—he’s openly proud of that—or the football paraphernalia or other such impersonal clutter, just. A couple letters from his parents. A picture of himself with an ex, whom he’d adored and missed terribly after they mutually decided to break it off because she moved far away. Things like that. Yuta isn’t so careless as to leave this stuff lying around where anybody could see it, but taking into account Taeyong’s relentless curiosity about everything around him, he doesn’t doubt that it would all be unearthed.

The entire truth is that some part of him, the part that’s still reflexively suspicious, was immediately nervous at the sight of Taeyong where he isn’t usually. It was like an unconscious trip wire set off before Yuta had time to think about it. He doesn’t say this part out loud, though, because it would probably only make Taeyong feel more alienated than he already does.

Taeyong blinks as he absorbs the answer, then gives a firm nod. “I see. I will not do it again.”

“Thanks."

“Of course." Taeyong drops into a deep bow.

Yuta’s brows draw together. “Alright, one more thing. You’ve got to stop bowing to me all the time. When we first met, it was fine, but now it’s sort of awkward.”

“You would prefer that I not bow? That seems somewhat rude.”

“I promise you, it’s not,” Yuta snorts.

Taeyong looks unsure. “There are elements to decorum that I shouldn’t abandon.”

“Well, this isn’t one of them,” says Yuta matter-of-factly. “Take it from a real, live person. Socializing 101. Being overly formal can make people feel burdened, or like you’re keeping them at arm’s length.”

“We’re less than an arm’s length apart from each other right now, though?” The end of the sentence slopes upward suddenly, a misplaced question. Taeyong sticks his arm out to demonstrate their proximity.

Yuta can’t help but smile a little. “Remember what I said about not being so literal? This is one of those times.”

“The concept is proving challenging,” Taeyong grouses, his bottom lip pushing into a pout. He needs to stop doing that, too, but Yuta can’t think of a good reason to declare it off-limits. It feels dangerously close to crossing the line into aegyo territory, which Yuta sees quite enough of from everyone else.

“Everything’s hard when you first try it,” is what Yuta offers in return.

He used to say this to Sicheng pretty often a couple years ago, when the other had just moved here and knew only a handful of broken phrases in Korean. However, he had never once said it flippantly or been dismissive of Sicheng’s struggle to get his tongue accustomed to a whole range of new sounds because he clearly remembered what it felt like to be in that stage himself. Yuta is a quick learner and picked up Korean fairly easily, for which he’s thankful, but that’s not to say he’d never had a hard time with it. Even now, when an idiom or reference goes over his head, he feels momentarily like his foreignness is physically apparent—written across his forehead.

Everything’s hard when you first try it, but you get better with time. That’s what he means. The second part just goes unspoken.

And from the soft look that appears on Taeyong’s face to replace the pout, Yuta can tell that this Taeyong understands without any additional explanation.

 

+

 

July bleeds into August quietly. The heatwave shows no signs of subsiding, which hardly matters by now: it's been around so long that Yuta is starting to accept it as a fact of life.

However, it does force them to get creative in finding new ways to entertain themselves while staying mostly at home. Yuta cannot believe he's admitting this, but there is only so much manga a person can read before the panels lift off the page and start swimming in front of your eyes.

They start by taking up gaming. Right off the bat, Ten’s better at it than Yuta is, which pisses him off enough that he calls it quits a few days in. He didn't much care for gaming to begin with, so it's no major loss.

This isn't to say that Ten is some kind of pro. Yuta just really sucks.

Taeyong, though, is in a league of his own. Once he’s spent a couple hours analyzing the mechanics of a game, the controls and the reward algorithms, he can ace every single level—sometimes within minutes. It hardly even matters what kind: he can master anything from logic puzzles to shooter RPGs without so much as batting an eye.

Jaehyun comes over one afternoon with Overwatch on his old PC and watches in pure, unbridled awe as Taeyong picks a random hero and nonchalantly decimates every enemy in his path.

“He’s a god,” Jaehyun whispers.

Yuta’s not sure about all that. Taeyong’s massive reservoir of gaming talents is, in all honesty, sort of magical, but _godlike_ seems like a bit of a stretch and too much of an ego boost besides. What really matters is that Taeyong can kick Ten’s ass, period.

Granted, he can kick just about anybody’s ass, but less than a week goes by before Taeyong tires of confounding the competitive gaming world with his prowess and instead develops a penchant for playing Animal Crossing.

Jaehyun mourns the death of a realm of professional opportunities. “It’s, like, a blow to all of Korea,” he insists.

“I don’t know,” says Ten, casting a glance at the window where Taeyong sits cross-legged on the floor, über-concentrated on harvesting apples. “I think it's sort of adorable.”

Privately, Yuta agrees. The Nintendo DS that Taeyong uses was once property of Jungwoo’s younger cousin, and as such is pink and shiny and encrusted with Line Friends stickers. Taeyong treasures it like it’s his firstborn child. In a way, it sort of is, seeing as he's never actually had a material possession of his own up until now.

Following Ten’s gaze, Jaehyun sighs and acquiesces. Taeyong is pretty damn cute.

Aside from gaming, they attempt to dabble in other hobbies. Some books that had originally been purchased for university courses and subsequently abandoned halfway through are read; some furniture is rearranged in the name of feng shui; some crusty acrylic paints are used to produce vaguely Cubism-inspired self-portraits.

Yuta even tries cooking a handful of fancy recipes from video tutorials, which goes about as well as anyone might expect.

“Is something burning?” asks Ten, emerging from his room and sniffing at the air. “I know it's hot in here, but it can't be that hot, right?”

“Nope,” says Yuta, grinning scarily wide. “It’s nothing.”

“I believe Yuta is destroying some ratatouille,” chirps Taeyong traitorously from the window without so much as looking up from his game.

Ten gasps. “Yuta hyung, that's animal abuse!”

There is a pause during which Yuta blinks at him, uncomprehending, then lets out the single longest sigh he's ever produced. “Ten. The rat’s name was Remy. Ratatouille is a _food_.”

“Oh.” Ten frowns. “It’s still burning, though.” And, well, Yuta can't argue with that part. They end up scraping out the pot and asking Taeyong to make dinner, which he does gladly and with enviable skill. Both Yuta and Ten—and their smoke alarm—are grateful.

Ten disappears off to Jungwoo’s after dinner, which is expected at this point. Sometimes he comes back to sleep in his own bed and sometimes he doesn’t, but both options have forced Yuta to get a little better acquainted with Taeyong, lest the two of them sit together in silence all evening.

Lately, they've been watching movies. It was odd at first to share the couch with only Taeyong for several uninterrupted hours, but Yuta’s gradually come to sort of enjoy it. Taeyong is an animated viewer but doesn't talk over the film, preferring to pause it if he really wants to ask a question. He’s also fond of discussing the plot in depth once the movie is over, which Yuta used to find tiresome but doesn't much mind anymore. It's become interesting to hear Taeyong’s interpretations, mostly because he tends to view actions and motives from behind a different lens.

They're not watching anything especially thought-provoking tonight, though. Yuta picks out a lighthearted romantic comedy and settles in with a bowl of ice cream after hitting play.

“Can I have some?” whispers Taeyong about fifteen minutes in.

Yuta wordlessly passes the bowl. If he holds out just the spoon, ice cream will drip onto the couch cushions; he and Taeyong sit far enough apart that a spill is inevitable.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Taeyong eat, the corner of his mouth twitching up when Taeyong bites right into a heaping spoonful and immediately scrunches up his nose at the cold.

“I should’ve warned you about brain freezes,” says Yuta, amused. “Or circuit freezes in your case, I guess.”

Taeyong shakes his head. “I’m fine.”

“You sure? That was a lot of ice cream all at once.”

“Well, it is colder than I anticipated,” Taeyong admits. “But I like the taste too much for it to bother me. This is delicious.”

This time, Yuta full-on smiles before he can help it. Despite his wealth of knowledge and often formal manner of speaking, Taeyong already acts a lot like a kid, and the discovery that he has a taste for ice cream only contributes to that image.

Taeyong grins sheepishly back and reaches out to return the bowl, but Yuta tells him that he can finish it. He seems to enjoy it more than Yuta does, anyway.

The rest of the movie goes by quietly. The story is cute but lacks depth, which Yuta had been prepared for by skimming reviews online and doesn’t find terribly bothersome. He spends the remaining time looking furtively at Taeyong instead.

The android’s features are washed in bluish light from the TV, making the usual shine in his eyes appear particularly luminous. He frowns minutely whenever the film’s main character experiences any mild inconvenience and perks up visibly when she maneuvers past them. His face is already expressive by ordinary standards, but Taeyong as a whole is anything but ordinary.

Yuta thinks about Taeyong's unquenchable desire to keep learning and improving himself. Then he thinks back to Sicheng’s arrival in Seoul, how he would mix Chinese words into stilted Korean sentences to get his point across when his vocabulary was lacking. Sees himself reflected in both of them.

With Sicheng, the similarity is obviously easier to pick out: both foreigners, they'd had to adjust to a totally new country and a new culture along with it. Taeyong doesn't really have a birthplace, per se, but he's Korean through and through: well versed in the language, the history, and the customs. Never lived anywhere else. Yet like them, he’s grappling with an unfamiliar environment, and he doesn't even have the years and years of exposure to universal social cues that they did to help him along.

Upbeat music filters through the speakers as the protagonist onscreen cups the face of her love interest in both hands and meets his eyes serenely. “We’ll make it work,” she promises. The man tucks a strand of hair behind her ear as he leans in for a kiss, and the camera swoops upwards, panning away from their embrace and towards the rosy skyline of the city behind them.

Taeyong drinks it in, positively enthralled.

Yuta leans back into the couch as the end credits start to roll, letting his eyes slip closed. Taeyong is no romcom protagonist, and Yuta, though devilishly handsome if he does say so himself, is a far cry from anybody’s dashing love interest, and they are by no means going to skip off together into the sunset. As it is, Yuta has only just learned to tolerate him.

But regardless, the closing line of the movie kind of struck a chord with him somewhere. This situation that they're both in right now is bizarre—has been from day one. But they’ll make it work eventually. Yuta can believe that.

 

+

 

Not long after, Doyoung grudgingly lifts his AC ban on Yuta and Ten—with the condition that Taeyong doesn't come with them, of course.

Ten doesn't listen, of course.

He worms his way into getting ahold of Jaehyun’s spare key for the afternoon because he’s a born snake, and he decides to bring Taeyong along because now he can and nobody particularly gives a shit about Doyoung’s rules, anyway.

Currently, Ten is lying prone on Doyoung’s couch, blissfully awash in air conditioning cranked up to the highest setting and thoroughly contented with his life choices to date. Yuta is reclined on the floor below him, watching anime on his phone while Taeyong pokes at the contents of Doyoung’s fridge.

“This refrigerator is remarkably well equipped with ingredients,” he comments. “Your friend must be very pragmatic.”

“Not the word I would use,” says Ten, “but sure.”

Taeyong pauses in his examination of a package of tofu. “What word would you use, then?”

Yuta opens his mouth with an automatic answer prepared on the tip of his tongue, but Ten fixes him with a beseeching stare. “We’re not teaching him curse words, remember?”

“I don't remember signing a contract,” says Yuta. He doesn’t bother mentioning that both of them have sworn in front of Taeyong multiple times before.

“It’s implicit,” Ten insists.

“An implicit contract does not exist solely because one party wishes it to,” supplies Taeyong helpfully.

Yuta laughs, triumphant. Though unintentionally, Taeyong has been stopping Ten in his whiny tracks fairly often as of late with his encyclopedic knowledge and still rudimentary understanding of banter. Ten, to Yuta’s immense satisfaction, never bothers to say anything back because he's still sort of beside himself with joy watching Taeyong interact.

He’d never dream of admitting it out loud, but from Yuta’s standpoint, this android arrangement is shaping up to be increasingly convenient.

Buoyed by his good mood, Yuta sticks out his right hand for a low five. Taeyong just stands there and looks at it, bewildered. Right. Not human and therefore devoid of social graces.

Yuta rolls his eyes and grabs Taeyong’s right hand with his left, then smacks it palm down on top of his other, still outstretched one. Ignores the jolt that travels through his fingers at the contact—Taeyong’s probably got an electric current running underneath his skin or something. “This is what people do when they’re both excited. Like, a celebration.”

“Oh,” says Taeyong. He doesn't make any attempt to move his hand.

Yuta waits.

Taeyong looks at him.

“It’s only supposed to last a second,” clarifies Yuta, pulling his hand away. Taeyong’s hovers in midair for a moment, almost hesitant, before returning to his side.

Ten lifts his head off the pillow he'd been resting on to side-eye both of them. “That was kind of gay.”

Scowling, Yuta lies back down and returns to his anime. “First of all, you think everything is gay.”

“Guilty,” Ten admits happily.

“Second of all,” continues Yuta, “the term gay refers to same-sex relationships. Taeyong and I aren't even the same species.”

“This is true,” says Taeyong, thoughtful.

Ten shrugs and burrows back into the pillow with a sigh. “I’m just saying. First you go out of your way to be extra nice to him, then you're holding hands…”

“That wasn't even what we were doing,” refutes Yuta, a smidge testy.

Before Ten has the chance to respond, Taeyong does his signature baleful puppy head-tilt and asks, “Then what, exactly, constitutes hand holding?”

“Huh?” says Yuta.

“Huh?” says Ten.

“Please show me,” says Taeyong.

Ten’s eyes widen like fucking saucers. Yuta doesn't even have to look at his face to know because he can quite literally feel Ten’s incredulous gaze land on the top of his head.

“No way,” he cackles. “This is too good. Come on, hyung, what kind of shoujo romance plotlines have you been reading to him?”

Yuta grits his teeth and jabs the pause button on his screen with more force than strictly necessary, then sits up and grabs Taeyong’s hand again, tight this time. He even interlocks their fingers resolutely because he can and it doesn't mean anything and Ten can eat his whole ass.

That jolt of electricity spikes through his fingers again, warm and insistent, and this time Yuta doesn't think it's Taeyong’s circuitry acting up. He does not think about the implications.

Yuta drops their hands and sticks out his chin, half proud and half defiant. A little overwhelmed by the buzz that still lingers underneath his skin. “That's holding hands.”

When he lies down again, it's with a disgruntled sort of air of finality, and Taeyong seems to have spent enough time with him by now to know when not to push.

 

+

 

As it turns out, the awkward hand-holding incident is just the beginning.

Taeyong’s daily activities are for the most part still confined within the realm of Yuta and Ten’s little apartment, because while they've gotten significantly better at switching the android in and out of low power mode, it remains something of a hassle to take him outside. Whenever they cross the street or spend any period of time longer than ten minutes exposed to direct sunlight, they have to monitor him like one would a small child; he even walks everywhere sandwiched between them. It gets a bit tiring for everyone involved.

So, having finally cleaned the place to his heart’s content, Taeyong decides that his next favorite thing to do is watch dramas.

“It helps me improve my comprehension of natural human interaction,” he defends when asked about it. This is his go-to excuse, and after five days of dedicated marathoning, it has begun to ring suspicious.

Having personally witnessed the look of rapture that crosses Taeyong’s face as he curls up on the couch for binge-watching sessions of shows new and old, Yuta formulates his own hypothesis: Taeyong is developing into some kind of hopeless romantic.

It sounds absurd and Yuta knows this. At present, Taeyong is still learning how to socialize with other people; romantic love should, theoretically, be leaps and bounds beyond his existing grasp of relationships. But there's just no other way to describe it. He enjoys the long-winded arcs and manifestation of overused tropes. He actually fucking coos when the leads share a kiss in 6 different angles with a syrupy ballad crescendoing in the background. Frankly, it's weird as all hell. Yuta deeply regrets introducing him to romcoms, because they seem to have served as the gateway drug to this addiction.

The consequent accumulation of cheesy lines in Taeyong’s lexicon isn't fun, either.

Exhibit A:

“Going to Jungwoo’s,” Ten calls behind him.

“You really might as well move in,” responds Yuta, bored.

Taeyong snaps his head up from the blanket nest on the couch that he’s been inhabiting while powering his way through the entirety of _Goblin_. Gravely, he intones, “The boy who moves like a flower petal is pulling you towards him with more force than his mass.”

Ten doesn’t even get the reference, but he looks grossly touched by the poetic sentiment.

Exhibit B:

“Stop hogging the TV,” Yuta groans, shoving at Taeyong’s shoulder halfheartedly. (Never with any real force because Taeyong is built like an honest-to-God twig.)

“Why?” Taeyong asks back.

Yuta clicks his tongue irritatedly. “I want to catch the Man U game." 

“Football?” Taeyong’s eyes light up. “Do you perhaps like Messi?”

And the worst, hands down, exhibit C:

“Move, you're blocking the bathroom door,” grunts Yuta one morning. “I need to brush my teeth.”

“Should I apologize?” says Taeyong. Then, utterly bereft of shame, he follows it up with, “Or should I confess to you?”

Yuta turns right the fuck around and goes back to bed after hearing that one.

Ten, predictably, gets a massive kick out of it.

To Yuta’s great distress, Jaehyun and Sicheng seem to think it's funny, too, which is unfair because they're supposed to be on his side. His unshakable refuge in this warped, android-dominated world. But no, both of them have chosen to defect and more or less side with Ten instead, which should be illegal.

“Maybe the AI revolution really is coming,” laments Yuta one night over the phone to Doyoung. Yes, Doyoung. He's sunken that low.

There's a tsking sound over the line, somehow conceited even without Doyoung saying a word thus far. “I’ve been preaching it for months, but nobody believes me.”

“They're too smart,” Yuta says, despairing.

“I know,” says Doyoung.

“Too good at catching you off guard,” continues Yuta.

“Yes, I would think so.”

“Too advanced!"

Doyoung sighs over the line. “Yuta hyung, this revelation is so late it's practically pointless. He's infiltrated your home and now your mind. Expect your prompt demise.”

Yuta half-wishes it would come already.

 

+

 

( **OPEN FORUM** )

 

95scorpio: okay so riddle me this nerds

 

jwoos: That's not very nice

 

95scorpio: anyway

from ur experience

do u think it's possible for an android to develop an emotional connection with a person

 

_jwoos is typing..._

 

jwoos: i mean idk how to answer that ?

 

95scorpio: aren't u the one who has a family connection at SM or whatever

 

jwoos: I'm not a love expert because of that though

 

95scorpio: dfvfsbdbdhdnb NOT. love

just like

a meaningful interpersonal relationship

 

mochisung: @95scorpio are U ok

 

95scorpio: definitely not otherwise i wouldn't be on here demanding answers

 

_mochisung is typing…_

 

mochisung: well to address your question i don't really see why not

Every model in the early rollout is equipped with enough sensory input software to form the rudimentary foundation of a relationship, which is recognition

& the data extrapolation programs focused in the C12 and C15 cervical terminals should allow for the projection of most complex emotions and trust

 

( **15 minutes later** )

 

….so like in essence we r all just walking bundles of chemical

@95scorpio U still there???

 

jwoos: i think he blasted off but great talk

 

mochisung: >:0

Well thats rude i could have been playing pubg this whole time see if i ever try and help u guys again!!!

 

+

 

Taeyong’s presence has become as much of a constant in Yuta’s life as the enduring heat; this is what he’s saddled with, for better or worse. The majority of his days are unremarkable, broken up only by sporadic visits from Jaehyun and Sicheng and weathering the storm of Taeyong’s never-ending Quest for Enlightenment.

The combination of exposure to multiple different personalities and absorbing hours and hours of dramas has gradually built up a playful side to Taeyong that Yuta’s certain did not exist a couple weeks ago: he’s less literal, more receptive to humor, quicker to smile. He's also taken to sharing meals with them on a consistent basis, though whether he eats very much or not depends on the day. It's no longer uncommon for the three of them to gather around the beat-up table and chat idly about anything that comes up. Yuta would have expected it to feel uncomfortable, but the longer Taeyong spends with them, the more easily conversation flows.

They talk about movies they've watched, or what their friends are up to, or the news when someone leaves it on. Taeyong in particular likes to catch the nightly report, oohing and aahing at stock market updates and political happenings.

Since getting into dramas, he's also developed a taste for celebrity dating scandals, which is unexpectedly entertaining.

(“They got back together?” gasps Taeyong when grainy Dispatch photos surface of an idol couple on a date. “They just confirmed their breakup a few weeks ago!”

He sounds like a gossipy neighborhood auntie. Yuta smothers a chuckle with the back of his hand.)

However, more than shared mealtimes or TV or celebrity updates, what really appeals to Taeyong is dessert. He takes up baking to satisfy his sweet tooth. Writes grocery lists of baking ingredients for them to buy, starting with those required for basic cupcakes and working his way up to French pastries that nobody can even pronounce. It's all well and good for a while—every room smells like cinnamon and sugar, and there's a new variety of confectionery on the counter every afternoon—until the apartment starts to get warmer than is strictly permissible in the summer heat and they have to call the whole thing off.

(“Not to mention,” adds Yuta, “just because Taeyong doesn't have blood sugar or tooth enamel and can eat whatever he wants doesn't mean the same applies to us.”

Ten casts a longing glance at the macarons boxed up to give to Jaehyun and Doyoung and makes a sad noise of assent.)

The solution, it seems, is ice cream. It's easily available within walking distance, can be procured at night once the sun has set, and most importantly, doesn't turn their living quarters into a makeshift sauna. It also happens to reign supreme as Taeyong's number one favorite dessert—though Yuta feels a little guilty about this fact because he thinks his heavy-handed scooping on movie nights helped catalyze it.

And so biweekly trips to the corner store are incorporated into their routine shortly after they start eating dinner together. Taeyong is usually the only one who gets anything, excited to try all the available ice cream flavors in stock, while Yuta and Ten lament the rapid lightening of their wallets.

“I need a summer job,” says Yuta grimly, eyeing the box of Melona bars in Taeyong’s hands.

“I need a sugar daddy,” moans Ten in answer.

“You have Jungwoo?”

Ten makes a loud _pfft_ sound and sends spit flying everywhere. “Please. If anything, I’m the daddy in the relationship.”

“Well,” responds Yuta, thoughtful, “you should see how Jungwoo feels about getting a Splenda grandpa before you make any moves.”

“Like I would actually do anything,” dismisses Ten. He pays for Taeyong’s box and dumps it in a plastic bag. “I just don't have the funds to sustain this dessert habit for much longer.”

Yuta takes note of the way that college-age store cashier looks at Taeyong, enamored by the absurdly cute tilt of his head, and says, “That might not be an issue soon. I think he’s gonna be scamming his way into free ice cream by the end of the month.”

He's lucky that they live in an older district where most cashiers still aren't automated, Yuta thinks, then tosses that line of reasoning almost immediately. Taeyong could probably charm a robot with a well-timed bat of his lashes, too.

Ten grabs the receipt and thrusts the plastic bag at Taeyong, who practically glows with elation. The heart-eyed cashier waves goodbye and Taeyong hits the poor girl with a matching wave and nose scrunch combo, no doubt resulting in an instant KO. Yuta thinks he sees her grab at her chest as if in pain as they're leaving. Grudgingly, he admits to himself that this response is not unreasonable.

The night is warm and sticky, almost gelatinous against their skin as they step out onto the street. Yuta already misses the crisp, chilly air inside the store, despite the fact that they'd left it less than ten seconds ago.

Taeyong fishes around in the bag he's been given to carry, opening the flap atop the box inside and emerging triumphantly with a Melona bar in one fist. He unwraps the top with great care and takes a bite.

“Good?” Yuta asks, despite being perfectly sure of the answer.

Taeyong nods so vigorously that he almost drops the box. “Great.”

Yuta thinks about telling him that he's gonna have to lay off on the ice cream for a while, that they aren't made of money, but he knows the words won't make it out of his mouth. Secretly, he finds the proof of Taeyong starting to come into his own—developing likes and dislikes, asking for things he wants—too satisfying.

It's incredible, Yuta reflects as the trio makes their way back down the street, that the NCT127-TY who they'd met for the very first time so many weeks ago has become the Taeyong they see today. When he'd opened his eyes in that giant, coffin-like box, surrounded by bubble wrap and packing peanuts, Yuta had found his demeanor unsettling. As if the scientists had constructed only 90% of him and left out something vital, some elusive 10% of humanity.

But this Taeyong is someone all new. Exactly the same in appearance, sure, but now the bare bones of his character have developed flesh: his sweet tooth, his unexpected love of pop culture, his penchant for sitting in the sunny spot under the living room window. These temper the almost overwhelming subservience he’d displayed initially, and combined with his intelligence and ever-present curiosity, the traits create a mosaic of someone Yuta could imagine having known his whole life. A person, multifaceted. A person, indisputably.

Yuta’s so lost in his thoughts on the elevator ride up that once they reach the correct floor, he almost walks clear past their apartment door. He’s saved only by Taeyong reaching out to tug at his sleeve.

“Where are you going? Home is this way,” Taeyong says. Even the word _home_ sounds right coming out of Taeyong’s mouth.

Yuta surmises that he's not wrong, anyway; the three of them have been carrying on like this for too long now for the place to not to be home to all of them. He withdraws the keycard from his pocket and waves it over the scanner, catching Ten's distinctly unimpressed expression in his peripheral vision as he does so. The door swings open a moment later, whining a bit on its hinges like it always does, and they quietly file inside.

The thing is, when it had just been Yuta and Ten, life wasn't boring by any means; Ten being who he is, that would have been impossible. But while two had been company, three is refreshing. Constantly surprising. Frustrating at times, without question, but never truly burdensome. Maybe Yuta is going soft or whatever, but it's kind of nice.

 

+

 

RECEIVED 4:09 PM

_hey you've never met jungwoo rite_

_like legitimately not 2 sec hallway encounter_

 

SENT 4:10 PM

_no i guess not_

_would be kind of hard since ur always at his place and never bring him home_

 

RECEIVED 4:11 PM

_:/_

_Thats bc his roommate is studying abroad the whole summer so we have more privacy_

 

SENT 4:14 PM

_omg wait yeah i forgot what u do when ur together_

_nvm_

_thanks for not bringing him home_

 

SENT 4:15 PM

_ever._

 

RECEIVED 4:15 PM

_ok well anyway it sucks that u havent like. MET him met him_

_Hes soo sweet_

_the others have nvr even seen him_

 

RECEIVED 4:16 PM

_;D i know what we should do !!!!!_

 

SENT 4:16 PM

_Ten no_

 

RECEIVED 4:16 PM

_Ten YES_

_family dinner!!!_

 

SENT 4:16 PM

 _ohhh_ _ok that's_ _g-rated_

_sure we can do that_

  

+

 

Yuta has met Kim Jungwoo only a handful of times prior to him starting up whatever it is he has going on with Ten, and none of those interactions had lasted longer than ten minutes, so he really hadn’t gotten a feel for the other’s personality. But from the way that Jungwoo sits primly across the table and speaks mostly in a semi-whisper, Yuta finds it almost impossible to imagine him and Ten together. Ten is open, obnoxious and unabashedly loud; basically, he’s everything that Jungwoo isn’t. Then again, Yuta supposes that opposites do attract.

Currently, they’re all gathered for dinner because Ten wanted to introduce Jungwoo to the group. Or, well, they’re all supposed to be gathered. Doyoung is running uncharacteristically late and Jaehyun’s supposed to arrive with him, but Yuta suspects this is due to the fact that Taeyong is joining them tonight as well.

Yuta had been apprehensive about the idea, to say the least. Sure, they’ve done baby steps—trips to the store, to buy ice cream, to sneak around behind Doyoung’s back—and he’s acclimated to going outside fairly smoothly from what Yuta can tell. Coming to a proper restaurant, though, in full view of not only their friends but any curious strangers… Yuta’s not sure why, but he can’t help worrying.

This feeling isn’t even justifiable; Taeyong’s an android, not an infant. For all his questions and wide-eyed wonder at the world around him, his logical thinking processes are fully developed. Probably a lot more than anyone else’s, to be honest. The sun isn't even out—it had set hours ago, allowing the city's temperature to dip comfortably below Taeyong’s tolerance threshold and therefore nullify the dangers of bringing him outside. They're just here to eat some goddamn noodles. Nothing will happen.

And yet when Yuta glances over at Taeyong, who, upon finishing his cover-to-cover perusal of the menu, is quietly swaying along to the song playing in the background, a tight wad of _something_ balls up in his throat.

He tries to get rid of it by violently clearing his throat multiple times and taking a big gulp of water, but it stubbornly remains.

Sicheng raises a brow. “Are you okay, hyung?”

“Peachy,” croaks Yuta, with the distinct vocal quality of a frog suffering from bronchitis.

Dissatisfied, Sicheng opens his mouth to reply, but is cut off by Doyoung’s loud arrival.

“I told you I didn't want to come!” he hisses, swatting at Jaehyun.

Jaehyun heaves a long-suffering sigh. “It’s just dinner.”

“It is not,” Doyoung snaps. “This is an opportunity for the android intruder to scan my brain and gather data on me for government use! I knew I should have brought my gamma ray blocker.”

Leaning back against the head of the table, Jaehyun grabs Doyoung’s face in both hands. “First of all, your gamma ray blocker is the wool hat my mom bought you for Christmas. You just lined it with tinfoil.”

“It’s DIY,” mumbles Doyoung petulantly.

“No,” says Jaehyun. “It’s ugly. Second of all, Taeyong isn't gonna do any of that to you. He's really nice, you'll see.”

Doyoung sniffs. “I doubt it.”

Ten looks up from playing with Jungwoo’s fingers long enough to roll his eyes with so much force that Yuta can hear it.

Jaehyun releases Doyoung’s face and grabs his hand instead. “Babe, please."

A vibrant pink stains the apples of Doyoung’s cheeks.

Sensing his imminent victory, Jaehyun leans in closer and croons, “Just a couple hours, baby.”

Doyoung’s cheeks darken as he looks away. “Fine, if it's only for that long. We leave immediately after dinner.”

Yuta makes a very loud, very pointed retching noise. “Oh my God. Sit down already, will you?"

“Yeah,” says Sicheng, looking equally disgusted. “In case you’ve forgotten, we’re here, too.”

Jaehyun shoots them an apologetic grin and takes the seat to Sicheng’s right, leaving only the seat between Yuta and Taeyong empty.

“Oh, hell no,” says Doyoung. “Not there.”

“Just sit,” groans Yuta. “It literally doesn't matter.”

Doyoung purses his lips. “Last I remember, you weren't such a big fan of androids, either.”

Yuta can't stop himself from glancing out the side of his eye to check Taeyong’s reaction. Fortunately, he doesn't seem to have heard, preoccupied as he is by drawing lines into the condensation on his glass of water.

“Things change,” says Yuta stiffly.

“You sit next to him, then.”

Jungwoo looks back and forth between the two of them as if watching a tennis match.

Yuta maintains defiant eye contact with Doyoung for a second longer before turning away. “Alright. I will.”

He slides his glass down the table before scooting one seat down, directly to Taeyong’s left. The lump in his throat expands. Yuta drains the rest of his water in one go.

“Are you dehydrated?” asks Taeyong, finally looking up. “That's unsafe, especially in this type of weather.”

“I’m fine,” mutters Yuta, opening his menu to study the entrees even though he's been here dozens of times before and always orders the same thing. Taeyong’s eyes linger on him for an extra moment before he shrugs and goes back to writing on his glass.

Sitting this close, Yuta can see what he's writing. _I am Taeyong_ , repeated twice around the rim of the glass. _I like Yuta. I like Ten._ Yuta suddenly wishes he hadn't drank all the water he had left, because this thing in his throat, whatever the hell it is, just seems to grow tighter and tighter.

Once the waiter has taken their orders, Ten leans forward intently. “Okay, now for real introductions. A couple of you have met him before, but this is my boyfriend, Jungwoo. Let's go around the table and say a little bit about ourselves!” Yuta thinks that this is lame and unnecessary, but he's going to save the assholery for when he knows Jungwoo a bit better.

They start with Sicheng, who cursorily gives his birthday and major. “I’m from China,” he adds as an afterthought. “So if my Korean sounds awkward, that's why.”

“You're perfectly fine,” says Jungwoo, sunny.

Ten grins and presses a quick kiss to Jungwoo’s jaw. Yuta resists the urge to gag again.

Jaehyun and Doyoung introduce themselves next. From the weird angle of their arms, Yuta can tell that Jaehyun is reaching around the corner of the table to hold Doyoung’s hand. Why is everyone around him dating? Why not him _,_ too? He wouldn't be annoyed if he also had someone to do gross-cute couple things with, but that's neither here nor there.

“I’m Nakamoto Yuta,” he says when it’s his turn. “From Osaka, Japan. October '95, so I’m a Scorpio, and also the oldest here, unless Jungwoo…?”

“Nope. He was born in '98,” Ten cuts in.

Yuta gasps. “A baby!"

“Hardly,” says Jungwoo with a grin.

Then it's Taeyong’s turn. He's kept rather quiet this entire time, especially considering that he's usually full of questions when around new people. Now, though, he just fidgets with his hands while thinking about what to say.

“My name is Taeyong. Nice to meet you,” he says finally. It sounds bare. He doesn't have a birth year or major or even a hometown. Everyone hears the silence.

Yuta jumps in to save him. “Well, Taeyong is an android, but you already knew that. He's also really good at gaming, and cooking, and… and he likes to watch dramas.”

Taeyong’s eyes do that thing, the one where they take on such a glossy shine that they practically look animated. “Thank you. Yes, all of that.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” says Jungwoo politely. “I, uh, guess it's my turn now.” Ten gives his hand a corny squeeze. “I’m Jungwoo, but Ten told you guys that. I like to sing. Um. I like Snoopy? The dog?”

“Isn't he the cutest,” coos Ten.

“Too cute for you,” comments Sicheng, nonchalant. Jungwoo stifles a giggle while Ten leers in mock offense.

Ten skips his own self-introduction because, in his words, “who doesn't know me,” and charges headfirst into the tale of how and he and Jungwoo first met. Yuta hasn't heard it before, surprisingly, but it involves a horrible English prof, asking for directions, and shared triangle kimbap. It is adorable, unsurprisingly.

However, Yuta doesn’t know if he's being overly self-conscious or if Jungwoo is just really overwhelmed at meeting them, but he kind of feels like Jungwoo is staring at him and Taeyong throughout the duration of the story. It's true that they'reright across from him, but shouldn't he be looking at Ten? Or around the table or something? Yuta meets his eyes a couple times, but Jungwoo immediately looks away as soon as it happens. He goes right back to staring a few seconds later, though. The expression on his face is unassuming, lips turned up pleasantly, but there's just... a feeling.

When their orders arrive, Yuta shakes it off and focuses his attention on digging into the food. It's their first real meeting, is all. Curiosity is natural. Maybe Ten’s just told Jungwoo some really slanderous things about Yuta’s personality and that's why he keeps looking—Yuta wouldn't put it past him.

Still, he can't help but think that Jungwoo’s attention remains a little too closely focused on him.

“How's the food?” he asks Taeyong in an effort to push it out of mind.

Taeyong hums around a mouthful of kalguksu. “Really good.”

“Yeah?” says Yuta, amused by the way his cheeks bulge.

Nodding vigorously, Taeyong swallows so he can speak a little clearer. “This is my favorite human dish. I have decided.”

“You've only had it once, though,” says Yuta. “It really beats your own cooking?”

“For now,” says Taeyong lightly. “But I will learn to make it even better.”

Yuta smiles. “I’m sure.”

The light fixture positioned directly above Taeyong gleams off his hair when he dips his head to slurp a big mouthful of broth. The strands look extra shiny—highlighted, almost. Extra soft, too. Yuta tightens his grip around the chopsticks in his hand so he's not tempted to do something stupid like reach out and ruffle it.

“You said you were a Scorpio, right?” asks Jungwoo suddenly, although it doesn't sound abrupt because of how soft his voice always comes out.

Blinking, Yuta nods.

“Hm.” Jungwoo goes back to his dish for a few moments, but once he realizes that Yuta is waiting for some kind of additional response, he hastens to elaborate. “I was just asking because I’m a Pisces. We’re supposed to get along well.”

“Oh, okay,” says Yuta, mollified. He thinks he remembers hearing something similar from Doyoung last year when the other had been in the midst of an obsession with Western astrology. That should be the reason that Jungwoo had been staring, then.

Jungwoo flashes a small grin, which Yuta returns.

They all end up grabbing ice cream after dinner at Taeyong’s insistence. Yuta tries to tell him no because they'd only just gone the other day, but Taeyong won't hear it. He insists that it'll give everyone more time to learn about Jungwoo and get comfortable with the new group dynamic, which is probably true, but kind of sneaky of him. It doesn't help that Sicheng backs him up enthusiastically.

“You know, you whine a lot for someone who’s supposed to be a personal assistant,” grumbles Yuta as he takes out his wallet.

Doyoung licks at his cone smugly, watching from the back as Yuta pays for everyone. His determination to bounce as soon as dinner ended was immediately assuaged by the prospect of Yuta Spending Money, on the group’s behalf, no less. And since the meal earlier had been Ten’s treat, the asshole's pockets remain happily full, which is distinctly unfair since he has the best-paying job out of all of them.

Jaehyun has one arm thrown casually around Doyoung’s shoulders, the other holding on to his cup of plain vanilla. Ten and Jungwoo lean into each other, sharing a single massive cone whose swirls reach higher than the tops of their heads. Sicheng had literally just ordered a whole pint to take home for himself and left.

That leaves Yuta and Taeyong, who linger around the counter after Yuta is done paying. Without Sicheng, the all-important key to their group of sad singles, the two of them sort of look like an awkward couple in the context of all the other lovebirds. It's weird, not least because Yuta knows that Taeyong is shameless and one hundred percent willing to spit out recycled drama dialogue at a moment's notice.

He makes to shift away, but the movement tilts the precariously balanced scoop of ice cream on his cone so that it almost topples over.

“Careful,” says Taeyong immediately, leaning over with a napkin. Somehow, he effortlessly balances the ice cream in his left hand while bending to dab at the liquidy rivulet of strawberry that had spilled on Yuta’s knuckles. Like this, he's only inches away, hair shinier than ever under the store’s cheap lighting, eyelashes impossibly long in profile.

Yuta takes a measured step back. “Thanks, I got it though.”

Lightning fast, Taeyong straightens up, restoring the bubble of personal space between them. “Right.”

There's a bit of green around the corner of Taeyong’s bottom lip from the matcha ice cream he'd chosen. Would it be weird if Yuta reached out to wipe it? No, right? Taeyong hadn't hesitated to do the same for him. But that had been on Yuta’s hand, not his mouth, and he doesn't even have a napkin.

“You've got something,” is what he settles for saying, and he gestures around his own bottom lip to demonstrate.

“Here?” Taeyong attempts to wipe it off and misses completely.

“No, like—” Yuta points this time, trying to be more specific, and watches in frustration as Taeyong misses again.

“Bottom right,” he directs. “The very corner.”

Helplessly, Taeyong swipes at his face again, this time coming within a centimeter of the dab of ice cream but still managing to avoid it.

Yuta shuts his eyes. He has been on the receiving end of a great deal of karmic retribution lately, but this singular instance possibly takes the cake.

With the most resigned huff he can produce, Yuta leans forward and swipes the speck away with his thumb. “There.”

Taeyong’s eyes are like saucers when he pulls away. Yuta doesn't think he’s ever seen them go quite so wide before, and that's saying something, considering that Taeyong’s resting expression resembles that of a baby kitten.

He attempts to hide it by taking a big bite of ice cream, but Yuta sees the tiny smile that flashes across Taeyong’s face anyway.

 

+

 

( **OPEN FORUM** )

 

jwoos: @95scorpio hey

How are things w android

 

_95scorpio is typing…_

 

95scorpio: uhh pretty good thanks for asking ig

 

jwoos: he's adjusted a lot more to being outside?

I mean I'm just guessing

 

95scorpio: ya actually it's pretty cool

the low power fix @mochisung came up with has been rly helpful

he's also ok w going out at night

 

mochisung: ^______^

 

jwoos: ah

that's cool^^

 

+

 

The truth is that Nakamoto Yuta has never been much of a crier. Not when it comes to his personal life, at least. Any of his friends—particularly Doyoung—would be more than happy to regale a curious asker with the tale of how he had dissolved into a hiccupy mess one Christmas when someone suggested they put on _Miracle in Cell No. 7_ and he’d had one too many drinks, but that’s different. Getting emotional over sad movies is one thing; genuinely displaying his heart on his sleeve is another.

That’s why Yuta, upon receiving an unusually grave text from his mother requesting that he call her soon, makes sure that Ten isn’t home and that his door is shut tight before he opens her contact on his phone. His pulse picks up a little as his thumb hovers over the call button. Then, taking a deep breath, he presses it.

His mother answers on the second ring, normally upbeat voice sounding tinny and exhausted. “Yuta?”

“Hi, mom.” Yuta picks at a loose thread on his sheets. “Is something wrong?”

She releases a crackling sigh into the phone. “Honestly, I didn’t want to worry you with this, but I thought you should know. Your grandfather had a heart attack.”

Yuta’s blood freezes. “What?”

“Yesterday afternoon, he… out of nowhere, he just…” She sighs into the speaker again, longer this time. “He’s in the hospital now, and the doctor says he’s doing well, so try not to worry too much."

“How am I supposed to do that?” says Yuta quietly. His maternal grandfather, the one who lives with them, had always been the picture of health. His knees never so much as creaked when he stood up. A heart attack seemed downright unfathomable.

“This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” says his mother, and when Yuta begins to interject, adds, “But we had to, of course. You may have moved all the way across the sea, but a part of you still lives here in this house, you know.”

Yuta knows.

They talk a little longer, discussing his grandfather’s condition until his mom finally shushes him and demands to know what he’s been up to as of late. It’s a timely intervention, because Yuta thinks that if he had gone on asking panicked questions any longer he would have gotten dizzy. He vaguely describes the effects of the ongoing heatwave and leaves out the fact that he’s somehow acquired an android housemate so as not to add to his mother’s stress. Frankly, there is no other event in his life at the moment that’s even mildly interesting, but he describes a number of mundane activities at length just to hear the soft, comforting hums of acknowledgement on the other end of the line. When he eventually lets a yawn slip, he is promptly chastised for staying up late despite the clock barely having reached midnight.

“I’m going to bed soon,” he promises, smiling a bit at the familiar nagging tone that enters his mother’s voice. It reminds him of being fourteen and coming home with knees muddied from playing soccer, school uniform shoved carelessly in his bag, dinner simmering on the stove.

“Okay, sleep well. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

It takes a ridiculous amount of strength to take the phone away from his ear and press down to end the call. His body feels like a rubber band that’s been snapped, stretched beyond its limits. While he’s definitely tired, he doubts he’ll be able to fall asleep easily tonight.

Then, the door to his room creaks open, and if Yuta wasn’t so drained he would have jumped out of his damn skin. Still, there’s only one person it could be. “What did I tell you about knocking?”

“I’m sorry,” says Taeyong, looking tiny in the doorway. “You sounded upset on the phone.”

Yuta doesn’t know how to respond. Once upon a time he would have told Taeyong that it was none of his business, but that’s too brusque and mean and no longer feels acceptable. Too much has happened since then for Yuta to shut him out so harshly. However, letting Taeyong stay in here with him seems to suggest that he open the floodgates and talk about his _feelings_ , which sounds equally undesirable.

At a loss, Yuta turns away and mumbles, “Close the door behind you,” leaving it up to Taeyong to interpret however he may.

He’s only half-surprised when Taeyong takes this as an invitation to properly come in rather than a dismissal. Gently, he swings the door shut and sits gingerly on the end of Yuta’s bed, hands settled in his lap as always. “Would you like to discuss it?”

“Not really,” says Yuta truthfully.

Taeyong nods. “That’s okay.”

But instead of getting up, he just stays perched at the foot of the bed. Expectant, but not impatient. He’s got on one of Yuta’s shirts again, an old band tee with faded lettering, and a pair of sweats that’s been worn too many times between Yuta and Ten for either of them to remember whose it was originally. The yellowish light of Yuta’s bedside lamp that would make anyone else look jaundiced paints his face and neck in tones of gold.

Yuta lowers his eyes and returns to picking at the thread on his sheets.

They stay like that for ten, fifteen minutes, possibly longer. The silence makes it feel like hours. Yuta can’t take it anymore. He has to say something, if only to fill up the empty space.

“That was my mom. On the phone, I mean.”

Taeyong blinks slowly, like a cat. “Was it nice hearing from her?”

“Always,” says Yuta. “It’s just. The topic this time wasn’t so nice.”

“Oh.” Taeyong adds no further comment. If Yuta hadn’t learned by now that Taeyong doesn’t have a malicious bone—or gear, or wire, doesn't matter—in his body, he might have thought Taeyong was doing this on purpose to antagonize him. That same need to fill up the silence rises again, prickling uncomfortably at the back of his neck.

“My grandfather had a heart attack.”

Taeyong unfolds his hands from his lap and draws them in close until he’s almost hugging himself. “That’s horrible.”

“Yeah.” Yuta fidgets in place. “And I wasn’t even there. I can’t even go see him in the hospital. I know it’s not, like, my fault or anything, but it makes me feel—just.” He cuts himself off, unwilling to say the word out loud.

“Negligent?” suggests Taeyong. “Unsupportive?”

Yuta kind of glowers at him for a moment before deflating. “Yes. To both.”

Taeyong gives a thoughtful little _hmm_ and waits for Yuta to continue. And for some reason, Yuta does, the fragmented sentences spilling out of his mouth becoming increasingly slippery the longer he talks.

“Getting this call and realizing I can’t be there for my family when things like this happen… And not just things like this. Everything. My sister’s getting married this fall, did you know that?” Yuta runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “Well, of course you didn’t, but. Even though I’m flying back to Japan for the wedding, the fact that she met someone and got engaged all when I wasn’t around creates that same sense of—”

“Guilt,” Taeyong provides, his eyes wide in understanding.

Yuta releases a terrifically lengthy exhale, one that he’d been holding in for much longer than he realized.

“You feel guilty that you are not present to witness major events in the lives of your family members,” asserts Taeyong. “You want to support them in person.”

“I really... yeah,” agrees Yuta, wondering when on earth Taeyong had gotten so good at reading him. “It’s like I’m doing them a disservice by studying overseas. We should all be together. But instead, I’m here in Korea and missing all these things when I could have gone to a Japanese university to get the exact same degree anyway.”

“It wouldn’t have been exactly the same.” Taeyong looks contemplative. “Your friends, Ten and Jaehyun and Sicheng and Doyoung. You would never have met them if you had stayed in Japan."

 _I would never have met_ you, Yuta’s mind supplies unhelpfully.

“That’s true,” acquiesces Yuta, staring at his hands. “But is it worth all the things I miss back home?”

“I do not think I can answer that question. Only you can."

Groaning, Yuta covers his face with a pillow. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” When Yuta uncovers his face to glare, Taeyong frowns and says, “This is one of those times where you do not mean a phrase literally, isn’t it.”

“Congratulations, you’ve figured it out.”

Taeyong’s frown deepens a fraction as he attempts to work through the meaning of the words. “I am unsure of whether or not this is another matter of coded inflection.”

Yuta laughs a bit despite himself. “No, you really have improved. I guess absorbing all that cheesy TV dialogue didn’t go to waste, after all."

“I would hope not,” says Taeyong, smiling a bit too before his face drops back into the serious expression he'd been wearing earlier. “But are you alright? Actually?”

“I’m good.”

Scrutinizing his face, Taeyong says, “I don't think so.”

“What? We talked it through or whatever. I am.”

Taeyong shakes his head. “You look like you want to say something else.”

Yuta sputters for a second, taken aback. He feels like he's been x-rayed, but emotionally, if that's even a thing. Is Taeyong some kind of therapist now? Is that his job? Maybe he really does have laser scanners embedded in his eyes after all.

“Go on,” says Taeyong, inclining his head.

“You're unbelievable,” mutters Yuta. “Fine. I was thinking for a while about moving back to Japan for the upcoming semester and finishing school there.”

“Finishing? Your whole program?"

“It’s only one more year,” Yuta defends, not liking the concern in Taeyong's eyes.

“Yes,” says Taeyong carefully. “And you can study anywhere you like. But that is a big decision.”

He’s right, of course, but sometimes the urge is overwhelming. It's about more than these separate instances of feeling obligated to return home. It's his sister and his grandfather and the creases at the corners of his mom’s eyes and the way she says his name when he calls, like he's at war or something. Quite honestly, it's about doubting himself. After all these years, Yuta still doesn't know whether or not he’d made the right choice by dropping everything to come to Korea.

“I should not have said anything,” whispers Taeyong apologetically, watching Yuta’s face fall. “I’ve never had a family, so I have no place to speak. Don't listen to me.”

Yuta thinks about his grandfather, always healthy as an ox, lying frail and sick in a hospital bed. About his sister bringing her fiancè home to a table with one chair empty. About himself, pursuing a degree in a foreign country that he doesn't have the slightest clue how to turn into the prospect of a stable future. About having to break the news of his early departure to his friends and say his final goodbyes.

And then Yuta is crying like he hasn't cried in years, his chest and eyes both burning something fierce, and he feels so _vulnerable_ and stupid and lost.

“Are you—oh no, don't—please don't cry,” stammers Taeyong, looking equally as lost.

Yuta buries his face in his hands, loathing the fact that Taeyong is here to witness this breakdown, see him at his very weakest. But once the dam has broken, there's no holding the water back. He doesn't even register the fact that Taeyong has moved closer until he feels one shaky arm winding around his shoulders. Taeyong’s other hand fumbles clumsily at Yuta’s knee for a few seconds as if unsure of where to go before he finds one of Yuta's hands and laces their fingers together. It's a little like that time at Doyoung’s, but also nothing like it, because while that was done to prove a point, this is nervous and earnest and consoling all wrapped up into one.

Yuta leans into the touch before he can think about what he's doing. Taeyong is so warm.

“I—fuck, sorry,” Yuta manages in between sobs. “I don't know what's wrong with me. I swear—never act like this. Fuck.”

“It’s okay.” Taeyong’s voice is hardly audible, his grip around Yuta's hand tightening the slightest bit. “There is nothing wrong with you.”

Too far gone now to care about maintaining boundaries, Yuta buries his face into the junction between Taeyong’s neck and shoulder and allows himself to just feel for once, chest heaving, tears hot, stress and frustration pouring out in waves. With his cheek pressed up against Taeyong like this, Yuta can hear the very faintest whirring noise underneath the other's skin. It's strangely soothing, almost like listening to a heartbeat.

They remain glued against each other in this position until Yuta’s neck starts to ache, at which point he reluctantly sits up. His cheeks are sticky with drying salt, and he knows his eyes must be swollen like hell. He feels like roadkill. He also feels somewhat lighter.

Taeyong lifts the arm around Yuta’s shoulders to unsteadily brush his bangs out of his face. “Is that... are you. Better?”

The other hand is still firmly entwined with Yuta’s own.

Yuta takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Better,” he affirms.

Neither of them lets go.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> helloo i am back !
> 
> the wonderful mir made a [spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/mirazal/playlist/0xSabVibiBSbfDTTQxGPaa?si=LCmjl2AvTPaUDqDAqS2Lzw) that i think suits this fic a lot so pls give it a listen! i also listened to replay (off nct’s latest album) manyy times on repeat while working on this and felt like i was standing in an h&m so perhaps.. take a sip of that as well for the Ambience
> 
> im sorry for the wait between chapters but hopefully this makes up for it :,)

Yuta’s sudden breakdown unceremoniously joins the list of things they don’t refer to out loud.

It goes like this: Ten returns in the morning with bagels and buoyed spirits, completely unaware of what had transpired the night before. Yuta and Taeyong wordlessly accept a bagel each and allow Ten to yammer on about how Jungwoo is the most beautiful human being to grace this hell planet for the majority of breakfast, sharing only a quick glance when they both reach for the jam at the same time.

“Anyway, what did you guys do yesterday?” asks Ten once he’s finally exhausted every synonym for ‘pretty’ that the dictionary has to offer.

Yuta pours out some coffee. “I mean, we talked a little. Went to sleep not too long after.”

“That’s boring,” says Ten, looking put-out. “Nothing else? Seriously?”

“What were we supposed to do, throw a party?” 

“Not without _me_.”

The corner of Yuta’s mouth ticks up wryly as he lifts his coffee mug. “Exactly.”

After breakfast, they split off to do their own things. Ten has some summer assignment to get started on that he’s been pushing back for nearly two months; Taeyong takes care of the dirty dishes as a matter of habit; Yuta retreats to his room and sits on his bed with both knees drawn up to his chest.

In daylight, by himself, it’s easy to imagine that the events of last night had never taken place. He’s fine, his family is fine, Taeyong didn’t come inside and—and hold Yuta while he—

Yuta lets his head drop backwards with a groan. Okay, maybe it’s not so easy. He remembers with piercing clarity just how warm Taeyong had been, the quiet conviction conveyed by the way his hand had gripped Yuta’s own. Wonders when exactly he’d gotten this sentimental.

It’s strange, not least because Yuta has never before let his guard come crashing down so completely. The last time he’d cried his eyes out like that, he was probably six years old, running unsteadily into his mother’s embrace after skinning his elbow on the pavement. He’s been sequestering those eggshell-fragile emotions ever since he realized how volatile they could be. Yet somehow, after years of this defense seemingly proving infallible, Taeyong had slipped past a hidden corner and seen right through him.

Even stranger is that the more Yuta thinks about it—picturing what would’ve happened had Ten heard him on the phone, or Jaehyun, even—he would still rather it have been Taeyong than anyone else.

It’s not that he doesn’t trust his friends, because he does, wholeheartedly. It’s just that telling secrets to Taeyong feels like telling secrets to the stars: no fear of judgement, no need for a reply. Only the silent, unshakeable knowledge that your every word is safe.

Ideally, Yuta wouldn’t ever have had to spill the contents of his heart to anyone. But since the cards have been stacked against him as of late, he supposes that at the very least, he’s grateful things played out the way they did.

 

+

 

Then, something odd happens. The aversion that Yuta harbors towards discussing his moment of weakness (and the consequent worry that it will stunt relations between him and Taeyong) proves to be completely unfounded when the incident opens up an unforeseen channel: touch.

It begins with movie nights, when Taeyong scoots subtly closer to Yuta over the course of the film until they’re almost occupying the same couch cushion. The first couple times, this earns him a raised eyebrow and a little scoff of disbelief. The third time, they watch a gory slasher flick jam-packed with jumpscares during which Yuta clutches at Taeyong’s arm perhaps more times than is strictly necessary. And after that, Taeyong ceases to bother with the sneaky scooting entirely and plops right down next to Yuta before he’s even hit play, often with snacks for them to share.

It’s easy enough to reach for popcorn at the same time and brush hands, or to knock elbows while shifting around to get comfortable; those moments are unintentional. But Yuta discovers that it’s also pretty easy to bump hips in the kitchen at lunch, or to squeeze Taeyong’s shoulder in congratulations when he learns a new figurative expression. They even master the elusive art of transitioning a high five into a shoulder bump after Taeyong makes a particularly clever quip. These moments are markedly intentional, and they’re different from the fleeting touches that had characterized their relationship before. This is touch to convey meaning, to emote, to connect.

Yuta isn’t usually concerned about invading anyone’s personal space—he and Ten push that envelope on a regular basis—but with Taeyong, each instance feels strange and new. Perhaps it’s because of his still-developing autonomy that Yuta is so skittish about the possibility of making him uncomfortable. However, it's Taeyong who continues to initiate the contact, growing increasingly sure of himself every time he reaches out, and, well, it comes all too naturally to Yuta to respond in kind.

An oppressively humid Tuesday afternoon sees them engaged in a game of Smash Bros, window flung open in a desperate attempt to air out the room. (Spoiler: it's not doing much.) Taeyong, playing as Kirby, is casually destroying Yuta’s Link.

Honestly, it’s unfair. Yuta struggles ferociously, dancing on the edge of certain doom while Taeyong deftly manipulates the controller, wearing the most tranquil poker face ever seen by the human eye. He gets the feeling that Taeyong has only let him survive this long out of some nascent sense of pity.

“Go ahead and finish it,” Yuta huffs, gaze unwavering from the TV.

Taeyong turns his head and looks away from the screen entirely without missing a beat on the controls, causing Yuta to sputter in disbelief. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. A quick death would be more merciful.”

“Okay,” Taeyong agrees simply before landing his final attack with devastating precision. Link, bless his pixelated soul, is finally laid to rest. Ruefully, Yuta watches Kirby’s victory animation sparkle across the screen. The vicious little puffball sort of resembles Taeyong, come to think of it.

“Brat,” says Yuta without heat. “You could have at least pretended to let me win.”

“You do not mean that,” counters Taeyong easily. He’s right, which is annoying and thrilling at the same time: it’s a testament to how well he’s learned to read Yuta by now.

Biting back a smile, Yuta leans across the couch to snatch up one of Taeyong’s artfully placed throw pillows, then chucks it at his perfectly shiny head. Taeyong manages to dodge the attack only partially. The pillow glances off his left ear, leaving that side of his hair ruffled and a bit staticky. 

“Yuta!” he yelps, a pout in his voice. His hands fly upwards in an attempt to smooth it down, but he keeps missing the most fluffed-up spots.

Yuta tuts. “Let me get that.”

Taeyong swivels compliantly so that Yuta can move in close and flatten the messy strands back into place. His hair is, as expected, incredibly soft. Yuta becomes acutely aware of both their proximity and the way Taeyong’s watching him with those huge Kirby eyes, and it makes his chest swell up with something suspiciously akin to fondness.

“There you go,” he says quietly, running his fingers over the crown of Taeyong’s head one last time for good measure. He lowers his voice almost without thinking, suddenly gripped by the idea that if he speaks any louder, the moment will shatter.

After regarding him for a bit, Taeyong thanks him in the same murmured tone. Yuta’s hands hover a second too long around Taeyong’s face.

Maybe it’s the way they’re positioned right now, with Taeyong all but sitting in Yuta’s lap, but Yuta is feeling the afternoon heat more keenly than ever. The warmth does not dissipate even after they awkwardly shift to put some distance between their legs.

And so they continue.

It should probably be weird how easy it is to accept the change, but it isn’t at all. Taeyong tugs Yuta by the arm when he wants to show him something. Yuta instinctively puts a steadying hand on Taeyong’s waist when he tries to balance a stack of dirty dishes that's too high. Ten even calls them out on it, but that's still not enough to dissuade them—especially in Yuta’s case, because it feels too good to realize that whatever vulnerability he might have shown didn't scare Taeyong off in the slightest.

Taeyong wanders by when Yuta’s sprawled out reading manga, then leans in to see the pages more clearly, and somehow ends up cross-legged on the bed, clutching a Rilakkuma plush to his chest as Yuta translates the dialogue panel by panel.

“The word for ‘promise’ in Japanese sounds like the one we use in Korean,” muses Taeyong.

“There are lots of terms like that,” Yuta agrees. “Peas in a pod.”

“Peas?” Taeyong’s face starts to screw up in confusion like it always does when a figure of speech flies past him. This doesn’t happen so often anymore, but Yuta has learned to be ready for when it does, jumping in with an explanation before his expression manages to crumple fully.

“Not literally. It refers to two things that are very similar, like… ” Yuta trails off, searching for an apt comparison.

Taeyong squishes Rilakkuma’s cheeks absently. “Like a human and an android?”

That is certainly not what Yuta was going to say. He wouldn’t have thought to link humans and androids off the top of his head, but he’s not going to shoot down the suggestion when Taeyong is staring at him in a manner so imploring.

“Sure,” obliges Yuta. “Like that.”

“Hmm.” Taeyong leans back against the headboard. “No, I believe I was mistaken. I don’t think I can accurately compare myself to other people—you and Ten—”

“Why not?” Yuta cuts in, surprising himself with how earnest he sounds. “You were right on the mark. We’re pretty alike, wouldn’t you say?”

“Major anatomical differences notwithstanding, we do share a staggering number of neural functions.” Taeyong pauses, considering the topic in greater detail. “As well as emotional output, to an extent.”

“Definitely,” says Yuta, encouraging. “We share interests too, right? Like manga, and certain foods, and an affinity for Rilakkuma.” He flicks the plush’s ear teasingly to punctuate his point.

The speed with which Yuta has switched mental gears from trying to illustrate an expression to affirming Taeyong’s assertion is practically whiplash-inducing, but he didn’t even have to think twice about it. It feels oddly important to let Taeyong know that his speculations are valid—and above all to highlight their similarities rather than their differences.

Taeyong covers the bear’s head protectively. “Don’t flick him!”

Yuta snorts. “But the evidence stands, yeah?”

“Well… yes.” Sitting up properly again, Taeyong runs a careful thumb along the edge of one fluffy, neatly stitched ear. “Peas in a pod.”

A victory, then. Yuta grins and leans over to tweak the plush’s other ear just because he can.

 

+

 

( **OPEN FORUM** )

 

ji_sol: Hey are these things waterproof

the androids

 

jwoos: uh

 

mochisung: From what ive observed the synth skin appears water-repellent to an extent in order to protect internal circuitry esp the more sensitive panels around the ears

But is still porous so as to best mimic the human epithelium

 

ji_sol: ?

 

95scorpio: what he’s trying to say is not really

 

ji_sol: oh darn. my ncity friend slipped in the bathtub

 

mochisung: Ok thats a really weird way to refer to ur android but that aside

why was he there

Theyre literally full of wires like

would u put ur hairdryer in the bathtub

 

ji_sol: Haha why would i do that

 

jwoos: ??? idk buddy that’s what we’re asking you

 

ji_sol: taeil watched a get unready with me video and wanted to try a self care routine

 

95scorpio: so u just let this taeil.. who is actual machinery by the way…… hop in the bath ?

 

ji_sol: Yeah

he is wet now

:/

 

jwoos: so i would imagine

 

mochisung: At least twenty of my brain cells withered and died after reading this

go dry off the bot before it short circuits and starts a house fire or something

isnt every approved host supposed to be a legal adult omg it’s like u guys r twelve

 

95scorpio: big words from someone who stole his mom’s info to order a droid off the interwebs

 

_mochisung is typing..._

 

mochisung: I may be swindling biotech companies but at least im not stupid

 

+

 

“So, anyway, he just allows his android pal to get soaked in the tub, and as if that wasn’t enough, the android slips and falls afterwards,” says Yuta, gesturing emphatically. “Like, it never crossed either of their minds that maybe electricity plus water is a bad combination.”

Across from him, Taeyong nods to show that he’s listening. He’s on low power mode because they’re currently at a cafe, the cozy one tucked around the corner opposite Doyoung’s apartment building. (Yuta had been thinking of dropping by later because Jaehyun texted that Doyoung is working this evening. The prospect of running his magnificent AC on blast and eating his leftover takeout is never unappealing.)

“I mean, it was funny, but also unbelievably dumb,” Yuta continues. He spoons up some of the fruit-topped cheesecake resting on a plate in front of him and takes a bite. “Who’s actually that irresponsible?”

“You’re saying you would never entertain something like that?” asks Taeyong, startling Yuta a bit by breaking his previous silence. Yuta realizes that he had asked a question, consequently inviting Taeyong to respond.

“Well, yeah. It’s flat-out dangerous. What if your system shut down?”

Taeyong hums. “That is considerate of you.”

“No, it’s common sense,” Yuta counters. “I wouldn’t encourage Ten to stick a fork in an electrical socket, even though he’s asking for it sometimes. In the same vein, I wouldn’t be chilling in another room while you submerge yourself in water.” He can’t even imagine it, honestly. If Taeyong slipped and busted his head, his temporal wiring could get fucked up pretty bad, depending on the landing. The primary control panel on the back of his neck might incur some serious damage, too.

He supposes it’s also possible that nothing genuinely awful would happen. The anonymous forum guy had illustrated that particular outcome by happily uploading a damage assessment scan done at SM’s main lab the day after. His android had miraculously come away with nothing more than some waterlogged cranial circuits and a minor dent in the shoulder—nothing that a day of in-lab repairs couldn’t handle, essentially. Still, those aren’t promising odds. Strangers on the internet might be content to gamble flippantly with luck, but Yuta is not exactly the prodigal son.

He briefly imagines finding Taeyong in the bathroom, drenched and unresponsive, and proceeds to dig his spoon into the slice of cheesecake with unnecessary force. That wouldn’t happen on his watch.

Taeyong tilts his head inquisitively, having noticed the sharp stab. He doesn’t say anything because of the limitations of his power-saving function, but he doesn’t need to. Yuta hears the _Are you okay?_ regardless.

“I’m good,” he says out loud, half to Taeyong and half to himself.

Taeyong cups his chin in his palm and gives a little smile in response.

“You want to try some of this cake?” asks Yuta, mostly to change the topic. He holds the spoonful of dessert out in front of him. “It’s great, actually.”

Rather than answering, Taeyong just opens his mouth and waits. A simple yes would have sufficed; Yuta had asked a direct question, after all. Now, he really is pushing the boundary of bratty-cute in much the way that Sicheng likes to, weaponizing the aegyo potential of his face to the fullest.

Yuta makes a big show of raising his eyes up to the ceiling, pretending to be exasperated, but he goes ahead and feeds Taeyong anyway. “You’re getting a little spoiled lately, don’t you think?”

Taeyong takes his time chewing before responding, which is bullshit in itself because cheesecake doesn’t even need to be chewed. “Perhaps. But you’re complicit.”

Snickering, Yuta acknowledges this round as evenly played.

The manner in which Taeyong’s wit has developed takes pieces of Sicheng and Ten and even Yuta himself and combines them together with a separate element all Taeyong’s own, and the constantly evolving output is fascinating. In the context of the Overall Taeyong Learning Curve, Yuta feels like a mixture of coach and spectator and teammate, guiding where he can but being surprised by him in turns as well.

Taeyong reaches forward and puts his hand on top of Yuta’s, then stares meaningfully at the half-eaten cheesecake slice left on Yuta’s plate. The face he pulls to accompany the action is criminally adorable, sleepy eyes and all.

“You had your own pastry,” Yuta defends, and it’s true but it’s useless. Crumbs of strawberry danish on Taeyong’s own plate be damned; this sweet tooth is unstoppable. Yuta manages to hold out only a few seconds longer before sighing and pushing the cheesecake across the table in defeat. “You’re too much, you know that?”

“Oh. Should I not eat it?” Immediately, Taeyong puts his spoon down on the table with a clatter and looks to Yuta for confirmation. A ray of sun glares momentarily through the cafe’s glass front wall, bouncing off his hair, dazzling. He seems apologetic, and with the light shifting over his features just so, Yuta thinks he may as well have a halo and wings.

“No, you go ahead.” Yuta leans back in his chair to demonstrate that he’s genuinely finished. After receiving the okay, Taeyong carefully picks up the spoon again and gets to work on the remaining dessert.

The cafe’s background music seems to grow louder in the absence of conversation, and Yuta listens absently as he watches Taeyong eat. It’s a well-known song, not very recent, featuring a delicate, high voice that describes feelings of pining over a gentle melody.

Yuta sits on his hands and looks around, at the cash register, at the ceiling, trying to focus on something besides the warm lyrics and the way that his stomach is flipping. Nervous, sort of, and needlessly elated, swooping and rising with the swell of notes in the song’s chorus.

 

+

 

“Thanks for doing this,” says Doyoung reluctantly. He puts his hands on his hips and steps back, assessing the placement of the couch.

They’re currently in the process of redoing his apartment’s interior. Technically, this is due to the bright red gochujang stains that Sicheng had inflicted upon his cushions and floor rug, but everyone is too fond of Sicheng to blame him outright. Instead, they mutually agree to attribute the effort to the fact that Doyoung’s big-name attorney older brother has recently moved house to a more lavish district and charitably donated his old furnishings. That Doyoung and Jaehyun had to travel to the other side of the city and haul his former belongings back home on the sky rail is not mentioned.

“No problem,” returns Yuta with a shrug. He’s not particularly hard at work: Jaehyun is doing most of the heavy lifting while Yuta just grabs a corner here and a rug there to ease the process. The frigid air in constant circulation means that hardly a drop of sweat has been shed, and there’s several generous orders of chicken waiting in the kitchen. All in all, Yuta has it pretty damn good right now, but he’s not going to point that out because it’s so rare to hear Doyoung express gratitude.

Also present are Sicheng and Taeyong. The former is curled up atop the old rug they’d piled in the corner, tapping away at his phone and generally offering no help whatsoever. The latter sits next to him in order to maintain a careful distance from Doyoung.

To be perfectly transparent, there was no real need for Yuta to bring Taeyong along when he knows how Doyoung feels about the android, but Ten isn’t home and he doesn’t like the idea of Taeyong sitting there alone.

(“He’s a big boy,” Ten had said wryly when Yuta told him they were going out together. “I think he’ll be fine.”

“Sure, and he’ll be fine if he comes with me, too.”

“Very sweet that you’re worried about leaving him on his own.”

“I’m not _worried_ ,” snapped Yuta. “It’s just convenient.”

Opening Taeyong’s inferior dorsal control panel to activate low power mode and reconfiguring his normal setup once inside Doyoung’s place is not convenient in the slightest. Judging by the way Ten had arched his brows, he deemed this fact obvious enough that it wasn’t even worth arguing.)

The arrangement is working out decently, though, largely because of Taeyong’s knack for interior design. Yuta didn’t even have to extoll his virtues or anything; he just naturally chimes in with thoughtful input at the right times. Despite Doyoung’s penchant for acting prickly when he so desires, Taeyong has started to demonstrate his new interpersonal skills with surprising finesse.

When Doyoung alters the position of the sofa in relation to the coffee table by minute degree intervals and asks for opinions, nobody sees the difference except Taeyong, who suggests a wider angle from the left corner. When Doyoung hangs up a glossy oil painting and decides he doesn’t like the placement, Taeyong says it would look great on the wall opposite the TV and really highlight Doyoung’s artful choice in color accents.

“The warmer tones in the background bring out the corresponding russet of your new rug,” Taeyong explains.

Doyoung scrutinizes the painting for so long that Yuta thinks he hadn’t heard the comment. Then, he clasps his hands together so loudly and suddenly that Yuta jumps. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you’re so right.”

“What the hell kind of color is russet?” asks Jaehyun in a stage whisper.

“Beats me,” Yuta answers. “We’re just not cultured enough, I guess.”

Ignoring them both, Doyoung crosses the room and hangs the painting where Taeyong had recommended. “It works so well,” he breathes.

Then, he stoops to pick up a large, ornate lamp with brassy detailing around the base and thrusts it outwards. “What about this?”

“Are you asking me?” ventures Taeyong carefully.

“Obviously.”

“Oh! In that case…” He looks around, scanning the room with an expert eye. “To be frank, I think the lamp would be a bit overkill in this scenario.”

Doyoung’s mouth pinches and Yuta prepares himself for a tirade.

“However, that’s only because you’ve achieved such a delicate balance of color and texture already,” adds Taeyong smoothly. “The lamp is lovely but clutters the space. Without it, one can truly appreciate the thought that has gone into the arrangement of this room as a whole.”

“Huh.” Doyoung hefts the lamp in his arms, considering it, then puts it back down and dusts off his hands. “Yeah, actually, I don’t think we need it after all.”

Yuta stares at the two of them, jaw on the verge of dropping. He must be seeing things.

“It’s really kind of tacky,” continues Doyoung. “Like, the burgundy lampshade on top of all that brass? What era is this? My brother might be dripping in lawyer money, but wealth is no substitute for taste.”

“Weren’t you gushing over the design a minute ago?” cuts in Yuta, uncomprehending.

Jaehyun smacks a damp, salty palm over Yuta’s mouth. “Shh. Let him have this.” Yuta shoves him off, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the clammy feel.

“Your taste is fantastic,” chirps Taeyong as if Yuta hadn’t interrupted.

Doyoung waves a dismissive hand. “Flattery will get you nowhere.” The claim would have been believable if not for the pleased expression that settles over his face as soon as the compliment leaves Taeyong’s mouth. They all see it, even Sicheng, who has stopped scrolling long enough to catch the tail end of the exchange and give Taeyong a covert handshake of congratulations.

Afterwards, once they’ve congregated around the chicken and broken out some beer to go with it, Doyoung points a slightly greasy finger at Taeyong’s head and says, “You.”

“Me?”

“Him,” throws in Yuta, just to be annoying.

“Perhaps,” says Doyoung, “I misjudged. By a fraction.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, hyung,” says Sicheng, wiping his hands daintily on a napkin. Clearly, he knows what it means, as do they all—an admission of wrongdoing straight from Doyoung’s mouth could not be mistaken for anything else—but he likes to play the devil’s advocate card so often that he may as well be crowned the devil himself.

“I still don’t trust artificial intelligence,” Doyoung tosses out, a disclaimer. “Or SM Industries. Especially not SM Industries. But you, specifically… are not quite as terrible as I thought.”

Jaehyun grins and nudges Taeyong’s shoulder across the table. “Wow, dude. Looks like you’re winning over just about everybody.”

“Good,” says Taeyong, deadpan. “It is quite exhausting to try.”

Yuta bursts into laughter, soon followed by everyone else. Taeyong doesn’t miss a beat when he joins them.

 

+

 

RECEIVED 12:42 PM

_i still havent forgotten btw !_

 

SENT 12:43 PM

_haven’t forgotten what.._

RECEIVED 12:43 PM

_Abt you_

_and TY :)_

SENT 12:45 PM

_ten why are u even texting me this youre literally in the next room._

_i could knock on your wall rn_

RECEIVED 12:46 PM

_go ahead lol changing the subject wont help_

_U two looked veryyyy cozy earlier_

SENT 12:47 PM

_one more word and i’m blocking u_

RECEIVED 12:47 PM

_Wait_

SENT 12:47 PM

_blocked_

+

There exists a limit to the number of times Yuta can observe Taeyong rifling through his clothes until he makes a comment about it. This limit has been pushed on multiple occasions, coming close to overflowing each time but managing to recede back into safe territory. Today, though, Yuta thinks that it has finally been surpassed.

“What is it with you and stealing my shirts?” he asks, amused.

Taeyong’s hands slowly still over the pile of laundry he's working on folding. “I was beginning to think that you would never say anything.”

“You thought wrong,” Yuta informs him. He swings a leg over the end of the bed, arranging himself so that their thighs align flush, and plucks playfully at Taeyong’s collar.

“Well, they're comfortable.”

“Only mine, though?” Yuta examines the Real Madrid logo over the left breast of the stolen jersey. There's no mistaking who the owner is. “You used to wear Ten’s stuff, too. What happened to that?”

Taeyong unfolds and refolds the same pair of sweats twice. “I prefer yours,” he admits, twin roses appearing in his cheeks.

The confession makes Yuta’s throat tighten, uncalled for, as if they're some stupid domestic couple living in a bubble populated by only the two of them.

He takes in the full view of Taeyong in his jersey, angelic in white—more so with the positively cherubic blush that lingers on the high points of his face. The sheer nerve of him to look like that is frankly unacceptable.

“That's not a very good excuse,” he manages finally.

“But it’s the truth.” Taeyong finishes with the last of the laundry, stacking worn sleepwear neatly along the bed’s far edge. He leans back on the heels of his hands, satisfied, then glances up at Yuta. “You are looking at me strangely.”

Yuta flicks his eyes away at lightspeed. “Could be that you’re just seeing things.”

“That's not a very good excuse,” mimics  Taeyong, and Yuta purses his lips in annoyance.

“You're not allowed to use that against me!”

Taeyong grins. “Are your excuses lacking because this does not genuinely bother you?”

“Okay, hold on, let's not get too ahead of ourselves—”

Purposefully, Taeyong leans in close to test the waters and doesn't miss the way that Yuta swallows. “I think that you like it,” he decides.

“Shut up,” tries Yuta, but the damage is done.

“You like to see me wearing your clothes.” The way Taeyong is glowing right now, you would think he won the Tour de France. “Your cheeks are red.”

“So are yours!” Yuta retorts.

“Stop looking, then!” With a bashful dip of his head, Taeyong uses both palms to cover his cheeks protectively.

Figuring that he's got nothing much left to lose at this stage, Yuta presses his temporary advantage. “But you’re so cute like this."

“I… it's fortunate that you think so,” says Taeyong after a beat, steadfastly ignoring the darkening of his cheeks. “Because I’m going to continue borrowing your things.”

Yuta snorts. “Go ahead. It’s not like you had any qualms about it before.”

They lapse into momentary silence. Taeyong fingers the hem of Yuta’s jersey thoughtfully before speaking up again.

“You have a habit of withholding the things you mean to say.”

What is this, a personal exposé of Yuta’s character?

“So do a lot of humans,” he grumbles. “One of our many flaws as a sentient race.”

“Not Ten,” points out Taeyong unhelpfully.

Oh, even worse. It's an exposé of Yuta’s character where he's deemed inferior on the scale of self-actualization to his dumbass roommate who thinks that texting Jay Park lyrics to his boyfriend is peak romance.

“I’ve told you before that Ten shouldn’t be your standard for dissecting the way people act. In fact, he’s an exceptionally bad choice. The very worst.”

“See, you’re doing it again. Although you don’t genuinely mean that statement, you pretend you do. Ten is your close friend.”

Yuta frowns. “That doesn’t make him a prime candidate for behavioral research. Most likely, it just means that I have bad taste.”

“I do not believe so,” says Taeyong. “From what I have witnessed, the network of relationships that you have built around yourself is both strong and supportive. Petty verbal sparring does not diminish its value.”

The slight wistfulness that trickles into his voice is not lost on Yuta. _Without these connections, this project is an inherent failure_ , he remembers Taeyong saying. That day feels like ages ago now, but the mindset clearly remains.

“It’s not exclusive to me,” he interjects. “You know them now, too.”

“And they are very kind,” agrees Taeyong. “But I am a novelty, not an equal.”

“No, don’t give me that.” It’s the harshest tone that Yuta has used with Taeyong in quite a long time, but it feels suitable for the situation. He wants to make himself crystal clear.

Taeyong thins his lips in a manner rather reminiscent of Doyoung, which is unsettling. “You cannot deny that I’m different, or that my interactions with all of you are lacking—”

“The success of daily interactions isn’t quantifiable,” presses Yuta, frustrated. “You’re not lacking anything because you’re not _supposed_ to be anything but yourself. It’s that simple.”

Gradually, so gradually that the action appears unconscious, one of Taeyong’s hands creeps back to the hem of Yuta’s jersey and begins tracing circles into the fabric. It seems to ground him while he thinks. “I was created for a purpose,” he says. “To heighten the quality of your lives. If I am not accomplishing it, then logically, I must need improvement.”

“Okay, sure, that’s true. But we all have room to improve.” Suddenly bold, Yuta takes Taeyong’s nervous hand in his own so that he’ll stop fiddling with the damn jersey and make eye contact. “Humans are flawed by nature. That doesn’t make us defunct, or failures. It just means that we have to keep on learning.”

“I am not a human,” says Taeyong cautiously, as if divulging sensitive information.

Yuta rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I’m aware. All I’m saying is that you should stop looking at the situation in terms of how far you have left to go. You’ve made a ton of progress, so be proud. And as for being different…”

His gaze drifts down to their joined hands, skin on synthetic skin.

“Well, no one’s asking you to become something that you’re not. Peas in a pod, remember?”

Taeyong cracks a small smile. “I remember.”

“Good,” proclaims Yuta with a degree of finality. “Forget about the rest.”

He’s sitting near enough to Taeyong to hear the gentle whirring of his thoracic core pick up speed, right next to where his heart should be.

+

Ten’s particular brand of cheerful harassment resurfaces with a vengeance when Jungwoo goes out of town to visit his grandparents for the weekend.

“Hey, Yuta hyung,” he whines, muffled because he’s face down on the couch. “Hyung. Get over here.”

Initially, Yuta tries ignoring him, but after a few minutes of dedicated meditation, the whines increase in pitch and volume. Ten’s warbling drifts through the apartment like the call of a anguished ghost doomed to wander the mortal plane, or perhaps an anguished university student who can’t get his dick wet.

Unable to maintain the zen facade, Yuta rounds the corner irritatedly. He’s marinating in a sheet mask, overgrown bangs pulled back with a headband. “What?” he demands, trying to move his mouth as little as possible.

Ten peels his face off the cushions just enough to turn his head to the side and make plaintive eye contact. “I’m bored. Entertain me.”

Figures. Ten only calls him hyung like that when he wants something.

“In case you couldn't tell,” says Yuta, ignoring the way the mask creases and slips down over his upper lip, “this is strictly me time.”

“It could be _us_ time!” Ten protests.

Yuta smooths the creased material around his nose and cheeks as haughtily as he can manage. “It absolutely can’t. Go bother Taeyong instead.”

“Taeyong’s charging, though.”

“He’s—oh.” Yuta had forgotten that Taeyong needed to do that. While the android doesn’t require sleep or food or even air, he does operate on a fancy lithium-hybrid battery that necessitates about half a day of charging every few weeks. (The first time he’d seen Taeyong plugged serenely into the wall, an extension cord trailing from his neck, he’d just about had a heart attack.)

“Yeah.” Ten sighs. “I miss Jungwoo.”

Yuta misses Jungwoo, too, because the other had been doing a stellar job at keeping Ten out of everyone else’s hair. “Then go outside or something. You know, socialize.”

“In thirty-six degree weather? I’m good.”

Exasperated, Yuta turns around to leave. “Well, I guess you’ll have to figure out another option. Me and my hyaluronic acid serum are going to go find our inner peace.”

“No!” Ten shoots out one hand with alarming speed and wraps it around Yuta’s wrist like an octopus. “Stay. Let’s chat.”

“I am not fond of your tone,” says Yuta.

“And I’m not fond of the fact that before Taeyong took over laundry duty, you wore the same musty ass football jersey 5 out of 7 days of the week,” Ten fires back without hesitation. “But you don’t see me complaining.”

“Sure I do. You complained about it all the time.”

“Okay, but that’s not the point.” Ten tugs insistently at Yuta’s arm. “Come sit.”

Reluctantly, Yuta perches on the armrest of the sofa, then readjusts the flap of serum-soaked cotton on top of his nose. “What’s so incredibly important that we have to discuss it right now?”

Ten stares at him beseechingly with his one visible eye. “Your sense of self-awareness sucks absolute ass. Taeyong. That’s who this is about. Has it even registered yet that the way you’ve been acting around him is not normal?”

Yuta narrows his eyes. “You already gave me the whole lecture about being too nice weeks ago, because friendliness is apparently unlawful in this household or something. Am I supposed to go back to bitching at him all the time?”

“Friendly,” repeats Ten, drawing out the syllables of the word like putty. “No, that’s not it.”

“You clearly have something to say, so go ahead and get it out. My mask is starting to dry.”

“Take it off, then.” With a well-timed lunge, Ten reaches up and snatches the material right off his face, then tosses it irreverently onto the table, where it lands with a wet splat _._

“Hey!” protests Yuta, affronted.

“Can you focus for a minute? You and Taeyong. Anyone in the same room with you two for fifteen minutes could tell that the relationship doesn’t begin and end with being _friendly._ ”

Yuta’s stomach flips, flips, flips. Crashes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Disbelieving and somehow almost disappointed, Ten shakes his head. “Fine. If you flat-out refuse to see it, then I’m not gonna bother holding your hand through the realization.”

“I wasn’t aware that I signed up for a counseling session today,” Yuta says snidely.

“No offense, hyung, but not even a fat check could persuade me to deal with your problems on a regular basis.”

In all fairness, Yuta is not fantastic at dealing with his own problems, either. Usually, he just slaps on a mask pack like a slimy, one-size-fits-all bandage and hopes that it more or less holds everything together. He stands up with the intention to leave but is stopped dead in his tracks by the next sentence to come out of Ten’s mouth.

“If you don’t want to admit what’s really going on with him, that’s one thing,” Ten announces, muffled by cushions again. “But in case you’ve forgotten, he’s not going to be around forever. Leaving open ends would be worst thing you could do, both for him and for yourself.”

Oh.

What really fucking sucks is that yeah, Yuta actually had forgotten.

Sometime in the last month or so, it slipped his mind entirely that Taeyong’s very presence under this roof came with the stipulation of a limited-time trial, an eventual end. It’s even more ridiculous considering that at the start of this whole thing, Yuta had practically been counting down the days until his time with them reached its expiration date.

He can’t even definitively mark the moment at which he’d really lowered his guard and opened himself up—Taeyong didn’t suddenly win him over one day. Not even that one afternoon with Jaehyun and Sicheng qualifies as the turning point, because as sobering as it was, that wasn’t enough by itself to fuel a genuine change of heart. There’s so many more elements to it: the boundless fascination Taeyong displays for the world at large, the way he’s always gazing out the window at night, his obsession with romantic cliches and his nose scrunch and the unfailing gentleness with which he says Yuta’s name. His touch, incrementally more confident every time he leans in, and his smile. How achingly _good_ he is, plain and simple, no matter how prepared Yuta had been to search out the worst in him.

Yuta swallows and walks away without responding.

On his way back to his room, he pauses in front of Ten’s door for a moment before throwing all reservations to the wind and heading straight inside. Curled up on top of Ten’s bed with his head comfortably pillowed is Taeyong.

It reminds Yuta of how he had arrived, eyes peacefully shut, except this is a truer analogy to the concept of human sleep: he’s resting, regaining energy, not totally disconnected like he’d once been. His charger cable visibly extends outwards from where it disappears into the hair at the nape of his neck and curves over the side of the bed, snaking towards a nearby power outlet.

Unbelievable, really, that this is where they stand—Yuta in particular, seeing as he’d been a self-professed skeptic of all AI tech prior to meeting Taeyong. And yet here he is, studying the way Taeyong’s fringe sweeps over his brow. Wanting to pinch the apple of his cheek where it’s smushed into Ten’s sheets. (He wouldn’t hesitate to do it if Taeyong was awake; he can envision the resulting blush in his mind’s eye with perfect clarity.)

Yuta wonders if Taeyong dreams. He would like to think so. It seems only fitting for someone so curious, who beholds everything around him with a certain degree of awe.

Slipping quietly out of the room and shutting the door, he resolves to ask Taeyong about it when he’s powered on again.

The other thing, the stomach-churning, pressing thing, will have to wait a bit longer. Maybe it’s selfish of him to postpone, but he doesn’t know how it’ll change their dynamic or how he can resolve it before all of this reaches its inevitable end. There are too many questions without precedent and no user guides for navigation.

And really, there’s a certain shadow of irony around it all, he muses bitterly. Months ago, Yuta had thought he was scared just to meet Taeyong, but that fear was nothing compared to this.

 

+

 

 **REMINDER:** All registered hosts of SMI® androids released through the Staggered Launch Initiative are required to complete a feedback survey about the holistic cohabitation experience. A link to the survey, along with further instructions regarding android return shipments, has been sent to the email address provided on the initial application. If you have not received said message, contact SM Industries  here. **Responses must be submitted no later than August 26th at midnight KST.**

 

+

 

Afterwards, Yuta’s mind is somewhere else.

“Is something worrying you?” asks Taeyong. They’re watching Spirited Away, an old favorite, but Yuta hasn’t been paying attention to the events onscreen. He feels almost like he’s having an out-of-body experience, his consciousness drifting through the roof and into the evening sky, leaving his body motionless on the couch.

“Yuta?” Taeyong tries again, tapping him on the shoulder.

Agonizingly slow, Yuta’s eyes refocus to find Taeyong peering at him only a few centimeters away from his face. “Sorry, what?”

“You’ve been very distracted lately. Is everything alright?”

“Oh. Yeah, everything’s good.”

Yuta forgets to tack on a smile and realizes his mistake when Taeyong’s eyes narrow. He doesn’t push it, though, and settles back into his position against Yuta’s shoulder with a pillow clutched in his arms.

They finish the rest of the movie without conversation, but Yuta can see Taeyong glancing at him every few minutes in his periphery. Concerned. Not enough to pry, maybe, but concerned nonetheless. It doesn’t come as a surprise at this point that he can tell something’s up because of how grandly his intuition has developed: there exists a startling sense of empathy within him that transcends operating systems and written code.

Before they go their separate ways to bed, Taeyong puts one hand on Yuta’s knee and sits quietly for a moment. “Whatever it is that’s troubling you, you’re welcome to talk about it,” he says. “I think that has been helpful in the past.” He seems to be referring to the night of the phone call.

Yuta marvels at how much more sure his tone is now, his hand, the comforting weight of it. “It’s no big deal,” he lies through his teeth. He doesn’t forget the smile this time. “Don’t worry.”

“Impossible,” counters Taeyong. “I was made to worry about you.”

All the wind exits Yuta’s lungs. His soul drops like dead weight from the atmosphere and reconnects forcefully with his body, heavy on impact; suddenly, he’s not only present again but hypersensitive to the point where the entire room feels stifling. It’s absolutely ludicrous how every little thing that Taeyong says or does these days leaves an immediate impact on him.

He finds it increasingly harder to hide, too. Ever since Ten had dragged him into that uncomfortable conversation, toeing the line of exposing the strange and terrible and exhilarating feelings whirling in his gut, it’s like he’s wearing thinner by the day. Pretty soon, he’ll be entirely transparent.

“Try your best not to,” he chokes out. “I can take care of myself.” Defensive. Distancing.

Taeyong withdraws his hand. “Okay,” he says softly. “Good night.”

Yuta doesn’t know if the response he mumbles back is even comprehensible.

He washes up for bed mechanically, pulse throbbing in his temples. Pathetic, really, that he’s been reduced to this. It’s as if the stress of sitting on an ultimately unavoidable confrontation has begun to manifest physically.

In his chest, he recognizes what he’s feeling for what it is. Ten had nearly said it outright, anyhow; it isn’t like avoiding the label or not saying the words out loud will make this any less real. He’s waiting for—what? A divine omen? For the heavens to crack open in brilliant light and a booming, disembodied voice to demand that he stop running away from his own heart like a little bitch?

 _That’s exactly what you are_ , says Ten’s annoying fucking drawl in the cesspool of Yuta’s mind that he inhabits when he’s not around in person. _So stop being one_.

Bent over the bathroom sink, Yuta splashes water on his face again and again until it smarts from the cold. Truly deplorable is the fact that he can’t afford the hydro bill that drowning all his problems would require.

The situation does not improve the following morning when he walks past Ten’s open door to find him frowning almost comically hard at his laptop screen.

“More summer assignments?”

“Oh, hey.” Ten breaks off the one-sided staring contest to look up. “I was just about to call you over, actually.”

Yuta flops bonelessly next to him. “Why? I don’t know anything about your classes.”

“This isn’t an assignment,” says Ten, angling the screen so they can both see. “SM sent out an email yesterday about this feedback form all android hosts need to complete.”

“That doesn’t make sense. They wouldn’t ask for feedback until…” Yuta’s mouth goes bone dry.

“Until the live-in trial is over, yeah.” To hear Ten so solemn is disconcerting, but to fully process the implications of what he’d just said is a flat-out slap in the face. “I didn’t realize it would be so soon. I mean, I knew about it when I signed all the agreements and stuff, but the end of August seemed so far away.”

“Oh.”

Time really doesn’t wait for anyone, huh.

Despite the judgement he’d expressed towards Yuta’s (generally poor, granted) attitude earlier, Ten’s eyes are sympathetic. “I thought we could fill it out together. Since, you know, you’ve been as much of a host to him as me. More, probably.”

Yuta’s already floating out of body again when he says, “Sure, let’s. Get it done, I guess.”

Ten may have been the one to sign up for the program and the one whose name is on all the paperwork, but from where they stand currently, it’s inconceivable to factor Yuta out of the equation. He remembers thinking on the day that Taeyong had first ventured outside the apartment that he was just a bystander in the grand scheme of this operation, unwillingly pulled along for the ride—and while the second part is still true, it was stupid of him to think he would be able to maintain a measured distance. Taeyong is too much of a force of nature—or of science, or something beyond either—for that to have ever worked out.

They open the link and click through the survey, which is painfully long. The first ten questions ask rather generally about the condition of their NCT127-TY: his initial configuration, startup time, battery and control panel functionality, and so on.  Next follows a section that lists characteristics the programmers intended to highlight, then asks the host to rate each on a sliding scale and give a thorough explanation underneath, with as many details as possible preferred.

“Approachability,” reads Ten. “Realism, subcategories: voice software, body, facial expressions, and linguistic patterns. Intuitiveness. Adaptability.” He scrolls downward. “There’s at least thirty more of these.”

“The fuck do they need so many for,” says Yuta blankly. He’s experiencing an increasing disconnect in perception of the android described so clinically on this form versus the one he’s been living with the entire summer. Sure, Taeyong is approachable. Intuitive. Adapts like a chameleon. But how do you score a person on their personality?

Ten scrolls even further, skimming the questions that head the following sections. “Not sure, but all of that put together isn’t even half the whole thing.”

Groaning, Yuta pushes the laptop away. “You do it.”

“Even if I wanted to finish it myself, which I definitely don’t, you’re not really going to sit there and let me color this entire survey with only my opinion of Taeyong.”

“Why not? You know him just as well.”

Ten gives him a flat look. “Still lying to ourselves, I see.”

That gets Yuta’s hackles up, not least because of the state he was in last night. He snatches the laptop out of Ten’s hands and rubs the sleep from his eyes before getting to work. If these SM engineers are genuinely going to read through every single response on every single form, he’s going to paint the most exacting picture of Taeyong he possibly can.

When Taeyong leaves these walls for good, those are the people whose hands he’ll be in. Never mind the fact that they’re the ones who created him—it was being here, with Yuta and Ten and all of their friends, this shitty apartment and its shitty air conditioning, that molded Taeyong into who he’s become. This much, Yuta will make sure they know.

“No breakfast?”

Taeyong pokes his head into the doorway as if summoned by them discussing him. The hand that’s not curled around the doorframe is gripping a spatula, and Yuta can see the strings of the apron that Jaehyun had half-jokingly gifted him dangling from his waist. It’s a bit too long, but Taeyong wears it faithfully every morning anyway.

“Oh no, we’ll be out in a second,” Ten assures him, discreetly lowering the laptop lid. “Just working on something, but we can finish after eating.”

Taeyong nods. “Then are omelettes okay?”

“That would be great,” chirps Ten.

Yuta nods, not trusting himself to speak. The survey remains open in front of him, almost mocking since he can see Taeyong standing right behind it. Earth spins twice as fast on its axis. Now that their remaining time together is siphoned by the day, an utterly mundane moment like this seems valuable, gilded. He wants to take a photo of Taeyong in his too-big apron. He wants Taeyong to stay.

By the time he’s swallowed down the lump in his throat enough to speak, Taeyong has already disappeared down the hall.

 

+

 

Resettling into their normal routine would be easy enough if Yuta could stop thinking about it, but that’s precisely it: he can’t. Although he used to pride himself on his ability to maintain flawless composure no matter the situation, this is a different beast.

He’s never had an android live with him before, that much is obvious. However, Taeyong’s technical species classification is only the tip of the iceberg. The real issue is that Yuta has never before held such a strong preconceived dislike of someone only to have it flipped on his head like a freezing wake-up call.

SM is demanding completed survey responses by the night of the 26th and every android packaged for return by noon the following day. A representative of the company is supposed to collect each one personally from the hosts because apparently, cardboard coffins and packing peanuts just don’t cut it anymore. Something about system maintenance and liabilities, Yuta’s not sure, doesn’t care, fears it, despises it. Today is already August 23rd, and the rapidly approaching deadline hovers over his head like the blade of a guillotine.

Has he mentioned that he can’t fucking stand this?

“Yes, several times,” replies Doyoung, looking bored. “You talk out loud when you think you’re talking to yourself.”

Yuta glares at him, but it withers after a few seconds.

Doyoung raises his eyebrows and takes a dainty sip of his Americano. “Where’s the virulence? You’re losing your touch.”

“Can you _just_ ,” implores Yuta, “please stop being an ass for two seconds.” He’s ripping his napkin into shreds, watching as the snowy pile on top of the table grows slowly larger. It’s starting to resemble a ski slope, maybe one belonging to a high-end resort somewhere in the Swiss Alps. He and Taeyong had watched a nature documentary about the Alps the other night.

“Taeyong wanted to know what snow feels like,” says Yuta to his pile of torn-up napkin. “Since he’s only ever experienced the summer. He wanted to make snow angels because he saw it in a movie and thought it looked cute.”

Doyoung swirls the straw in his coffee noisily. “This is actually incredibly sad to watch.”

“Sorry I have to provide all the angst in your life now that your stupid weekend drama’s stopped airing," Yuta barks.

“Hey,” protests Jaehyun, arriving at the table with his drink in hand. “It was very well-acted. And touching.”

“You know what would really be touching? If you, as my friends, heard me out and supported me.”

“Sounds unrealistic, but okay,” says Doyoung. “So what are we dealing with here, heartache? Pining? Four years’ worth of repressed emotions manifesting as a projection of love onto an artificial intelligence bot?”

“Babe, that's mean,” chides Jaehyun. “Yuta hyung is going through a lot right now.”

Yuta finishes shredding the napkin in his hand and reaches for another one. “Yuta hyung wants to jump off a bridge.”

“Yuta hyung should stop referring to himself in the third person,” replies Doyoung, giving him an odd look. “And confront his problems directly instead of crying about them.”

“Okay, so?” Simultaneously exhausted and wound-up, Yuta throws his remaining fistful of napkin pieces at the tabletop like confetti and slumps back in his chair. “What exactly am I supposed to do? He leaves in less than four days. And he's, you know, not human. Doesn't get feelings.”

“Neither do you, it seems like,” points out Jaehyun.

This time, Yuta’s glare is scorching, and Doyoung grins in delight. “There it is! That's the fire we were missing.”

“Be helpful or shut up,” Yuta hisses.

Jaehyun picks up his coffee to take a sip and grimaces when the condensation beading the plastic cup leaves his hand wet. “I mean, you could always just try having a conversation.”

“But after that, he's going away forever.” Yuta buries his head in his hands. When he looks up, both Jaehyun and Doyoung are watching him. “What?”

“You're really torn up about this, huh?” Jaehyun asks.

Yuta doesn't bother answering. The truth of the matter is clear enough.

“Wow.” With a sigh, Doyoung leans back, mimicking Yuta’s defeated posture. “I’d say ‘I told you so’ and that nothing good can ever come of engaging with AI, but there's no satisfaction in it now. I actually feel kind of bad.”

“Alert the media,” Yuta mumbles.

Jaehyun reaches over to put a hand on his shoulder. It's the wet one, and it leaves an uncomfortably damp print on Yuta's shirt. “This is a tough one, hyung. I don't think there's a right or wrong way to go about it. Just… be honest and have faith that the rest will work itself out.”

“How?”

Doyoung presses his lips together, and it's weird how it makes Yuta think of Taeyong despite the idiosyncrasy being Doyoung’s first. “Well, that's where the faith comes in.”

 

+

 

So Yuta tries. He really does. He spends the rest of the day and the entirety of the next day working up the courage to say something, aware that the countdown clock is ticking. He dodges sidelong glances from Ten around the apartment and chews rehearsed words along with the stir fry that Taeyong makes at dinner.

“Is it too dry?” Taeyong asks, taking notice of how long Yuta has spent working on one bite of chicken in silence.

“No,” says Yuta, and leaves it at that. _Now isn't the time,_ he tells himself. But if not now, then when?

Ten hightails it downstairs to Jungwoo’s as soon as the plates are cleared, casting one final, meaningful look at Yuta before he goes. Yuta thinks the scant amount of dinner he’d managed to get down is threatening to make a reappearance.

The feeling does not magically vanish once they relocate to the living room.

“What would you like to watch today?” Taeyong flicks through the catalogue of available films with a practiced hand. The wafer-thin, circular disk embedded just underneath the skin of his right palm glows faintly blue as he points it at the TV screen to hover his remote cursor.

Despite the fact that Yuta has seen him go through these exact motions a hundred times before, it somehow makes him feel increasingly queasy; Taeyong’s casual chip implants and manual controls are another reminder of the reality of where they stand. How different they still are, regardless of the common ground that’s been reached. Yuta had gradually grown accustomed to irregularities like this, but on a night when every little thing sets him on edge, it becomes striking all over again.

The light in Taeyong’s palm dims as he lowers his hand, conscious of Yuta’s silence. “If you want to discuss—”

“You’re leaving soon,” blurts Yuta gracelessly.

Rather than startling at the sudden change in subject, Taeyong turns to face Yuta fully and slowly closes his fingers over his palm, powering the sensor down. “Yes,” he agrees.

“In a few days,” continues Yuta.

Taeyong nods.

Yuta blows out a long breath, searching for the words he’d practiced in his head. “I just wanted to tell you that it’s been. Um.” His mind runs completely blank. “Um.”

Unfazed, Taeyong waits.

 _This isn’t right_ , thinks Yuta. Whatever he had intended to say before seems irrelevant. He looks at Taeyong, who looks patiently, gently back at him, and knows with sharp certainty that for once, this really isn’t about him. He owes Taeyong something important first and foremost.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Now, Taeyong looks surprised. “Why?”

“I was a massive asshole to you,” says Yuta, “when we first met. And for a long time after that. I guess it was hard for me to process, and to accept, because I had this mindset from the beginning that who you were and what that meant were unequivocally… bad.” He looks up at the ceiling, forcing out the next words despite the embarrassment it brings him. “I was wrong about that, and you.”

Taeyong blinks. “Well, I understood that I was intruding on your space—I suppose I still am—”

“You’re not.”

“Oh.” Taeyong examines his own palm almost like he’s never seen it before, tracing over the lines delicately etched into the skin with the thumb of his other hand. It occurs to Yuta that this conversation may not be the easiest for him, either. “In that case, I am glad that I have not been a burden. I worried about that a lot at the start.”

“I'm sorry,” repeats Yuta, “for making you think that you were.”

“I can hardly be the judge of acceptable human behavior, but I realize that an apology can be healing for both parties. So, thank you for apologizing, I suppose.”

The corner of Yuta’s mouth skews upwards, lopsided. “It was overdue,” he says.

Taeyong’s fingers inch steadily closer to Yuta’s. “You know, I really like it here. I am grateful that this is where I got to be.”

“I guess we were pretty lucky,” says Yuta, closing the distance between them to take Taeyong’s hand in his own, “to get to meet you, too.”

 

+

 

SENT 11:18 PM

_i couldn't do it_

 

RECEIVED 11:18 PM

_wish i could say i was surprised_

 

SENT 11:19 PM

_die_

 

RECEIVED 11:20 PM

_No_

_bc u would be sad :/_

 

+

 

Once that particular wall has been broken, Taeyong’s impending departure acknowledged, the entire world is thrust into hyperspeed. It’s only a couple days, but there are suddenly a hundred and one things to strike through on the SM checklist.

Yuta and Ten miraculously finish the survey with time to spare. It takes four full hours of typing, deleting, retyping, bickering, and once, upending a water bottle over Ten’s head to keep him focused, but they manage to answer every demanding question in painstaking detail. However, it’s difficult for Yuta to muster up any sense of accomplishment after they finally hit the submit button; after hours of talking about Taeyong like a household appliance, he just feels empty.

Next comes a mandatory full-body inspection of Taeyong’s circuits, which is about as enjoyable as getting swabbed for strep throat and nowhere near as brief. Ten mistakenly drops a potato chip into the crack of Taeyong’s dorsal control panel and gets his index finger stuck inside for several minutes before he’s able to pry it out. Once Yuta has stopped cackling, he insists on taking over for the rest of the examination lest Ten jam some other important terminal with honey butter crumbs.

(“Where’s C11?” Yuta asks, flipping through the user guide in an attempt to locate some helpful diagram. “That one’s supposed to light up green.”

“I would help you, but apparently I’m not be trusted,” replies Ten sulkily.

“That’s not exactly a revelation,” mutters Yuta.)

Upon ensuring that Taeyong is in perfect working condition, they’re assaulted via Ten’s email inbox with a slew of new reminders, warnings, and documents requiring signatures. Yuta scrolls through the barrage of attachments in disbelief. It’s a veritable legal circlejerk. Still, they find the willpower to go through each one because as tempting as it would be to ignore, they understand the importance of treading lightly with a company that blows millions on petty litigation like it’s a sport.

And then, the night before Taeyong is scheduled to leave, a farewell party somehow emerges in the middle of all the chaos.

It’s entirely Ten's idea, although Jaehyun was the one to sort out most of the logistics. Yuta wasn't even informed about it beforehand. He’s summoned to Doyoung’s place under the pretense of more home renovations, only to be greeted in the doorway with crepe paper streamers and Sicheng blowing a metallic blue noisemaker two centimeters in front of his nose.

“What’s all this?” Taeyong steps out from behind Yuta, puzzled.

Sicheng blows into the noisemaker once more, just for kicks. “It’s a party for you, obviously!”

“For me?”

“Yeah,” says Jaehyun, appearing out of thin air with a large bowl tucked in the crook of one elbow. He's using a soup spoon to shovel guacamole straight from the bowl into his mouth. “Since you're, like, going away.”

“Oh, Taeyong’s here already!” shrills Ten’s voice from the kitchen. He and Jungwoo emerge a few moments later, both covered in an obscene amount of glitter dust. Where it came from, Yuta's not sure he wants to know. Doyoung trails after them, trying and failing to look pissed off. Even he seems to be in a unusually pleasant mood today.

Yuta supposes that Taeyong really does grow on everybody, one way or another.

With a bemused laugh, he tugs Taeyong gently inside by the wrist and closes the door behind them. “It’s your night,” Yuta tells him.

Taeyong looks like he still can’t quite comprehend what’s going on. “But why?”

“Because we’ll miss you,” declares Ten, bounding over to envelop him in a firm hug. “All of us. Doyoung, too, although he won’t admit it.”

Doyoung resolutely pretends to be busy rearranging the balloons taped to the back of the sofa, but his having agreed to host the party is evidence enough.

Taeyong seems to reach the same conclusion, if the slackening of his jaw is any indication. “I… I do not know what to say.”

“Then don’t worry about it and grab something to eat instead,” suggests Jaehyun, still spooning up guac. “We got kind of carried away while planning and ended up ordering a month’s worth of rations for a small army.”

Yuta glances at the kitchen and, yeah, that’s not much of an exaggeration. The counters are lined with enough steam-fogged containers to sustain three generations of his family.

“Doyoung hyung got a pay raise,” explains Sicheng in a voice that is likely intended to be hushed but comes out whooping and victorious. Doyoung clicks his tongue but doesn’t say anything because it’s Sicheng, and that’s a reason in itself.

So Taeyong allows himself to be guided to the kitchen and handed a plate so heavily laden with food that it probably rivals his own body in mass, and despite not ever having much of an appetite for anything besides dessert, he polishes it all off dutifully. (“He doesn’t metabolize carbs,” says Ten through a mouthful of noodles. “He’ll be just fine.”)

Everyone else follows suit, doing their best to contribute to the counter-clearing effort, but they all end up collapsing in defeat within a few short hours. When Yuta finally puts down his spoon, he’s so stuffed that he suspects he’s about to go into labor. Across the living room, a mildly ill Jungwoo clutches at one of Doyoung’s expensive pillows like a lifejacket.

“I’ll never eat again,” mumbles Jaehyun, making hazy eye contact with a half-finished tray of kimbap. His hand twitches sporadically as if reaching for a phantom plate. Next to him, Sicheng holds a single sliver of radish up to the light, staring like it has personally offended him.

“You say that now, but tomorrow morning will be a different story,” Doyoung mutters into the remnants of a lettuce wrap.

There’s a few bottles of soju somewhere in the vicinity of the fridge, but for once, nobody’s really drinking. Doyoung has work in the afternoon, Taeyong literally doesn’t have the tolerance, and Yuta, well, he’s trying to remember as much of tonight as he can. Taeyong with his nose crinkled up at some stupid joke Ten had told. Taeyong with a streak of chili sauce on his chin. Taeyong, happy and overwhelmed in the best possible way.

“Wait!” Ten sits bolt upright, sudden as a clap of thunder. “We forgot the cake!”

“We’re all going to barf if we try to force down anything else,” says Jaehyun morosely.

Jungwoo presses one cheek into the pillow he’s still curled around. “We did order it custom, though. Paid extra for holo candles and everything.”

Yuta blinks up at the ceiling, his attention captured. Despite holo-integration having made its way slowly but surely into a bevy of common household items, the candles are still a fairly new invention. He hasn’t seen any in person before.

“We could cut it, at least,” says Taeyong.

Sicheng closes his eyes meditatively. “I could go for some frosting.”

“Then I guess it’s decided.” Ten detangles his legs from Jungwoo’s with what looks like enormous difficulty, then begins the long trek to the fridge. He comes back carrying an elaborate paper box, the sides painted glittery gold and silver and the top adorned with an oversized white bow. The layer of sparkles crusted onto his arms and shirt from earlier makes a good deal more sense in context.

The rest of the group peels themselves off whatever surfaces they’d flopped down on and gathers around the kitchen table. Yuta makes sure that Taeyong stands in the middle. They’re here for him, after all.

They watch with open curiosity as Jungwoo carefully deconstructs the box, flattening down the sides to reveal a elegant cake of three layers. It's smothered with creamy icing and patterned with delicate leaves of gold foil. The real intrigue, though, comes from the three candles on top, which spiral together in an elaborate helix. With a practiced hand, Jungwoo gives the top a firm twist and flicks some tiny apparatus at the helix’s base.

And then—Yuta’s breath catches in his throat.

Out of a small shower of sparks grows a holo projection of all seven of them, an immaculate three-dimensional replica of a picture they’d taken together at Taeyong’s favorite restaurant last week. Everyone is grinning, arms around each other. If the holo didn’t cut off at their torsos, they would absolutely look like real people, albeit scaled down to about 15 centimeters tall.

Taeyong gapes silently at the cake as if he can’t believe what’s seeing.

“Do you like it?” asks Ten.

Hesitantly, Taeyong passes one hand through the projection and watches the image fracture upon contact with his skin like stained glass in a church window, only to reassemble as soon as his hand moves away. He repeats the motion a few more times, spellbound.

“It’s wonderful,” he says in a tone that Yuta would almost describe as reverent. “Thank you. All of you.”

“This was all Jungwoo,” protests Jaehyun.

Jungwoo shakes his head. “It’s from everyone.”

Ten presses into his side with a sigh, and Jungwoo glances at him, then loops one arm around his shoulders to thumb discreetly just below Ten’s eye. The others don’t notice, but Yuta does, and he _cannot_ stand here and watch Ten get all teary because he has no clue what he himself is going to do if that happens. This might be the end of the line, but he’s not going allow it to feel like a funeral.

Before anyone can stop him, Yuta scoops a dollop of whipped cream off the cake’s bottom edge and smears it across the bridge of Taeyong’s nose, coaxing out a startled laugh. Ten and Sicheng are the next to act, securing sugary ammunition of their own and painting twin stripes on Taeyong’s cheeks. Jaehyun gets in a swipe along the jaw, and Jungwoo caves not long after, adding his own dab of frosting to the canvas that Taeyong’s face has become.

Everyone looks expectantly at Doyoung, who looks back at them stubbornly for all of two seconds before sweeping the glitter that has collected atop the kitchen table into his palm and dumping it on the crown of Taeyong’s head. A triumphant cheer rings out, resounding.

In the minutes that follow, more cake ends up on their hands and faces than in their mouths, but it doesn’t matter. They’re celebrating, not eulogizing.

They’re allowed to enjoy this while it lasts.

 

+

 

( **OPEN FORUM** )

 

jwoos: idk if anyone is on rn since it’s kind of late haha

but I hope that everyones had a good experience these past couple months

& been able to learn from this little community!!

 

mochisung: ya this was cool

Also depending on the feedback they might rerelease these adrds as part of a full launch soon

so who knows we might come back here again

 

jwoos: @mochisung you’re right

until next time then^^

 

+

 

The display of the clock on Yuta's nightstand glares 1:27 AM, harshly bright. He flips his pillow over to the cooler side underneath and rolls over, squinting at the time. The same numbers as Taeyong’s model. It seems that the universe never tires of taunting him.

Yuta turns away from the clock and attempts to settle comfortably on his back. Folds his hands neatly across his stomach. Tries regulating his breathing to a steady pattern of 4-7-8, in-hold-out, repeat.

It doesn't work.

With a frustrated groan, he flings damp sheets away from his body and swings his legs off the bed. He'll go grab a glass of water and collect his thoughts, or maybe just nurse it at the kitchen table until daybreak. Watch the sunrise like he used to do with his dad as a kid. He’s been meaning to get back into the habit of rising early again, anyway, because the new semester is right on the verge of starting up. He just hadn’t gotten around to it as soon as he’d intended. Everything has been off-center the past couple months, irregular and backwards, ever since—

“Oh, Yuta."

Ever since this.

Slowly, he turns the corner of the hallway and comes to a stop.

In front of the living room window stands Taeyong, his smudged silhouette very nearly phantasmic. But if this is a dream, the details are faultless; Yuta counts them. The shape of his jaw, tilt of his head. The distinct manner in which his voice rises to call out Yuta's name. The single hand curled around the window frame, perpetually seeking an anchor. No, if this is truly a dream, Yuta thinks he would like to remain asleep a bit longer.

Then, he crosses the room to stand next to Taeyong and decides that the pensive eyes that follow him are definitely too real to have been conjured by his restless mind.

“Looking for anything in particular?” he asks, gesturing at the window.

“Stars. I saw giant groups of them on a program about outer space the other day.” The hand Taeyong’s got on the frame tightens minutely. “I am aware that logically, they should not be seen clearly in such a densely populated urban area, but I’m still looking. Is that foolish?”

“Nah,” says Yuta. “It’s just hopeful.”

“Hope,” Taeyong echoes. “Huh. I suppose I learned that from you.”

“I suppose you did.” A teasing color enters Yuta’s tone—even at a time like this, with the demands of tomorrow looming threateningly just ahead of them.

He examines the sky, currently tinged a murky shade of navy that suggests not a hint of the constellations Taeyong is so fascinated by. There are too many lights, too many people bustling around the city at all hours for that to ever be possible.

Yuta is abruptly reminded of a memory he hasn’t dwelled on in years, glimmering and precious.

“When I was a kid,” he begins, “like six or seven years old, my family went on this hiking trip to a natural park in the north of Osaka. There were a lot more trips after that, and probably some before, but this is the first one that really stuck with me. It was early autumn, and there was a waterfall surrounded by all these momiji trees just starting to turn red. And later, when the stars came out at night… it was like nothing I had ever seen.”

Taeyong smiles slightly, gaze far away. “That sounds beautiful.”

“Yeah. I wish you could have seen it.”

The smile slips in an instant, corners withering into something sad. “Me too.”

Yuta’s left hand seeks out Taeyong’s right one of its own accord, a familiar comfort by now. A reflex. “There are lots of things I would have showed you if we had more time,” he says quietly.

Taeyong doesn’t respond immediately, still absorbed in staring out the window.

Emboldened by the dimness, the slight pressure of Taeyong’s grip, and the merciless timer ticking invisibly around them, Yuta continues. “Do you remember the first time you met Jaehyun and Sicheng? When you asked us about the joy of, like. Human connection.”

“I remember everything,” says Taeyong lightly. His head finds Yuta's shoulder, a gentle weight. “That's my job.”

“Right.” It takes all the strength in Yuta’s body to force his parched throat to swallow, trying to summon the right words. Hoping desperately that he can convey what he needs to. “Well. You should know that you were wrong.”

Against Yuta's shoulder, Taeyong’s lips part in surprise. “What?”

“First, you were wrong about being a failure. You don’t need to emulate anything on anybody else’s behalf."

Taeyong straightens as he considers this. “Is there a second part?”

“I was getting to that,” says Yuta, heart thudding wildly in his chest. “Second. You were wrong about it being impossible to experience that joy of connection if both sides aren’t human.”

“Yuta—”

“Taeyongie.” That stops him firmly in his tracks, expression utterly shocked, and Yuta hadn’t even said it on purpose. It just felt right. “You make me really happy. Just by being here, and being you. Happier than I’ve been in a long time.”

Silence, for a moment that feels like an hour that feels like forever. Taeyong is looking at him like he’s just grown another limb or said that the Earth is flat. The aura of blazing, reckless confidence that had engulfed Yuta only minutes prior flickers and evaporates, leaving him utterly stripped bare. He wants to disappear. He wants to never open his huge fucking mouth again. He—

“Wait, are you _crying?”_

All other thoughts instantly vacate his mind as he pulls Taeyong forward into his chest, running both hands soothingly across his back. Traces the jut of each shoulder blade and thumbs feather-light over the upper knobs of his spine, circling over and over until Taeyong stops trembling in his arms. His heart mechanism is humming faster than Yuta’s ever heard it, and he can feel it physically overheating where it’s pressed against him.

When they separate just enough to see each other’s faces, the budding tears are gone. Only a viscous, silvery wetness remains, sticking Taeyong’s long lashes together and lending an ethereal glitter to his eyes. The whirring of his core processor is also still intensely rapid, but Yuta’s own pulse is probably doing double time right now, too.

“I’m sorry,” Yuta murmurs, running a thumb over Taeyong’s cheekbone. “I didn’t mean to overwhelm you.”

Taeyong shakes his head. “Don’t be.”

Yuta maps the curve of his cheek another time, then a third. “Okay,” he replies, so terribly fond.

His heart is full to bursting, and it aches.

“In the past months,” says Taeyong, “I have read and learned and wondered a lot about love. By definition, it comes down to brain chemicals, but it means so much more to so many people. To me, it remains the most confusing facet of your lives. But because of you, and this"—he waves vaguely around the two of them—"I think that eventually, I might be able to understand.”

They both know that the _eventually_ to which Taeyong is referring takes place in some far-flung future, not the here and now where they’re together. This all ends in less than ten hours. Their time is nearly up.

Yuta gathers Taeyong close to him again, uncaring of the heat still emanating from his processor. At the very worst, prolonged contact may leave a mild burn, which will heal and fade away. Getting to hold Taeyong is worth it. “I know you don’t sleep,” he says, “but do you maybe want to come back to bed with me? You don’t have to, I just.” _Want to spend this last night with you._

“No,” says Taeyong, and upon noticing Yuta’s poorly concealed wince, he adds, “Not because I don’t want to, but because leaving will be more difficult in the morning. I have never... I don’t want to make this worse.”

“Alright,” says Yuta, voice unsteady. He starts to lower his hands from Taeyong’s face. “Then I’ll, uh.”

“Wait!”

Taeyong grabs both of Yuta’s hands and tugs him back, then leans in to plant an exceptionally sudden, exceptionally quick kiss on the corner of Yuta’s mouth. “I saw that in the dramas,” he explains shyly.

Every inch of Yuta’s skin is alight. He’s magnetized, charged, drawn helplessly to Taeyong. He can’t walk away now, not without—

Taeyong sighs as Yuta presses back into him, all fervor and insistence, sealing their mouths properly this time. A real kiss for the broadcasting networks. Taeyong’s lips are soft, his hands shaky and unsure as they move upwards from Yuta’s wrists, locating first biceps, then shoulders, then cradling Yuta’s head at an awkward angle. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t need to be perfect. It’s everything.

“This doesn’t have to be the end, you know,” whispers Taeyong after they part. The moonlight puddles in his eyes, liquid, polished. “They could do a relaunch. We might see each other again.”

Yuta feels stupid asking, but he does anyway. “Would you remember me?”

“I don’t know what alterations will be made. They may even perform a total system reboot.” Taeyong looks pained, like he wants to promise but still be honest. “If I remember anything, though, it will be you. Of that much, I am sure.”

The certainty of the statement makes Yuta want to laugh and burst into sobs at the same time. How can they know? How can anyone know? He squeezes Taeyong’s hands one last time before letting go for fear for dissolving into tears if he stays out here any longer. 

“Good night, Yuta,” says Taeyong, deliberately avoiding the word _goodbye._

“Night, Taeyongie,” Yuta tells him. “Wherever you are, I hope you’ll be happy, too.”

 

+

 

The following morning, Yuta avoids rising from bed. Not when the sun comes up, or when he hears the others start moving around, or even hours later when Ten knocks softly on his door and tells him he can come see Taeyong off, if he wants.

He doesn't.


	4. Chapter 4

Class starts again the following week.

For the first time since sophomore year, Yuta and Ten’s schedules coincide enough that they can take the sky rail together to campus. The maglev stations are packed like they haven’t been since June with students emerging from midyear hibernation, but it's still sweltering out, which makes for irritable, sweaty crowds. Someone jostles Yuta into a steel rail, and he grimaces as it imparts an angry red print on his arm. 

He hardly notices when the train pulls in despite the rush of people clamoring forward; an alarmed Ten has to bodily haul him through the carriage doors seconds before they close. On another day following a different summer, Ten might have asked what was with him, but aside from a brief look of concern, he doesn't mention it. They’re both well aware of the reason, and neither of them speak the entire ride.

Yuta stares out the window at the blur of buildings flying past. Taeyong would have been fascinated by the view. They'd never taken him on the sky rail for fear that the electromagnetic field that suspends the train above its track would interfere with his inner circuitry, to say nothing of the claustrophobic heat inside the compartments. No one understood the workings of his system well enough to feel confident taking a chance, so Taeyong missed the experience. _Maybe if_ …? Yuta’s fingertips flutter against the glass. If, if, if. There’s no point wasting energy thinking about what could have been.

After years of fine-tuning, levitation tech has grown sophisticated enough to shrink the once half-hour ride to less than 10 minutes. Ten hooks his elbow into Yuta’s in preparation to disembark as the train pulls into the station on the fringes of the university grounds. Again, Yuta allows himself to be led.

Their paths diverge outside the west entrance, where Ten has to turn left for his multimedia arts seminar and Yuta is supposed to continue straight to cultural comm. They stand still, looking at each other, a temporary island in the stream of hurried bodies.

“You'll be fine, right?” asks Ten, gentle around the edges.

Yuta blinks at the digitally projected clock tower in the distance. (They’d torn the physical one down last year to build a new wing of molecular bio labs.) In three years, he’s never been this early. “Yeah." 

Ten chews his lip. “Okay. Text me when you get out.” 

“I'm not a kid,” Yuta mumbles, no bite. A minute elapses on the clock’s display.

“You’re not,” agrees Ten. “Right now, you just seem. Well.” He takes a hesitant step back, glancing in the direction of his building. “Text me, okay, hyung?”

Yuta nods just in time for Ten to see it before he's swallowed up by the throng.

Some overexcited freshman brushes past, calling for her friend to wait up, and thwacks him firmly in the side with her stuffed backpack. “Sorry!” she yelps.

Yuta can't even find it in himself to smilingly reassure her that she's fine, it was his fault for loitering in the middle of the walkway. He just nods and shoulders his own bag higher, starting down the winding path to his lecture.

He lingers outside the door upon realizing that he's arrived before everyone except the professor. Normally, he'd head inside anyway and strike up conversation, but this morning he doesn't feel up to it, so he waits until he’s on the cusp of being late to enter.

The rest of the day continues in much the same fashion: Yuta gets to class early, avoids engagement, and mechanically rereads the syllabus until he's released. Acquaintances catch him here and there to say hi and how was your summer and you look a little gray, are you doing alright? Yuta's doing alright. That's what he tells them all, forcing a sunnier disposition for a few seconds before it strains like a pulled muscle.

Jaehyun finds him on the quad around lunchtime. “How's it going, hyung?” he says very carefully. 

The sun beats down on Yuta’s brow, incongruous with Seoul's usual agenda for September. “It's going,” he replies.

Jaehyun squints at him through the sunshine. “That's good.”

Yuta sighs.

 

+

 

Life drags relentlessly on, no matter how desperately Yuta wishes for some small reprieve. He's pushed the boulder this far up the hill already; it's all he can do not to crumple behind the weight of it.

When he has somewhere to be, he rises earlier than strictly needed and uses the extra time to stare into the bathroom mirror, face still dripping wet, and contemplate the urge to scream. He always tamps it down out of consideration for the neighbors, even though it scratches ugly in his throat like the beginnings of the flu. Even though sometimes, he thinks the unvoiced scream will increase in pressure if he continues to smother it, rising and bubbling until it’s torn from his mouth altogether. 

When he doesn’t have somewhere to be, he sleeps the entire day away.

Ten invites him to events in hopes of reengaging his desire to socialize, but Yuta turns them all down. Club meetings, brunches, a dance showcase put on by Jungwoo’s friend—it doesn’t really matter what the occasion is because Yuta’s preparing the answering _no_ before Ten even finishes speaking. He gets what Ten is trying to do, really, but he doesn’t quite have it in him.

The the normalcy of the routine he slips into is foreign after months of living under the most unusual of circumstances, and it’s drafty, a roof in desperate need of thatching. Taeyong’s absence is a yawning gap that Yuta doesn’t know how to close.

He finds himself staring at the stove one evening like it's landed on Earth from a foreign planet. It's ancient (still uses gas, still has dials to turn the flame on and off instead of the sleek, pressurized touchpad that all newer ones do) but it's what they could afford between sporadic part-timing and small scholarships. Their apartment, while a hell of a lot better than the shoeboxes of adjacent neighborhoods, is by no means spacious, either. None of their surroundings are especially glamorous or cutting-edge. Taeyong as a being, the entire concept of him—it should have been wildly out of place, and yet.

Yuta resignedly sets some water to boil. 

(And yet Taeyong was an exception in every way imaginable.)

After a few minutes, he opens the cupboards to grab a package of instant ramen, but finds nothing. The fridge proves to be equally bare. He and Ten have been pretty busy this week, and it looks like both of them have neglected to do any sort of grocery shopping. 

Briefly, Yuta considers the effort it would take to drag his ass out the door in search of sustenance, then decides against it and flicks off the flame on the stovetop. The hot water is reincarnated as chamomile tea brewed with leaves that have inhabited this apartment longer than he has, and then he rinses the mug and goes to bed and tries not to think about the way he’s acting. Like living is obligatory instead of an experience over which he has control. Like he doesn’t know how to be alone anymore.

“Can you, like, go out and get some sunlight?” demands Ten a week later at a volume unacceptable for eight in the morning. 

“Can I?” Yuta shifts around, tugging the blanket lazily up to his chin. “Probably. Am I going to? That’s a different question.” 

“If you can be this actively facetious, you can get out of bed,” insists Ten. When Yuta doesn’t answer, he grabs the blanket by its corner and yanks it all the way down, leaving Yuta exposed and chilly.

Yuta curls in on himself immediately, almost hissing. “What do you think you're doing, the cold—” 

The end of the protest dies in his mouth before he can convey the true depth and breadth of how annoyed he is, accompanied by the realization that something about this sentence is not right. He’s cold? He’d been sleeping under the covers? That doesn’t add up, it’s way too hot. 

“No, it’s not,” says Ten. “The weather dropped like crazy over the weekend but you didn’t realize because you’re staging a sit-in in your room or something. It’s 20 degrees outside. I had to cover your dumb ass with this blanket yesterday night because you went to sleep in boxers and a tank top like you think it’s still August.” 

“The hell,” says Yuta eloquently. “What day is today?”

Ten bends to rifle through his drawers and produces a hoodie that he tosses at Yuta before replying. “Tuesday.” 

Yuta blinks. It’s been chilly since the weekend started and he hadn’t noticed at all? 

“Hey, where are you going?” calls Ten crossly, but Yuta isn’t listening. He’s barrelling through the hall, past the living room, slipping into the hoodie as he goes. The door swings shut behind him as he makes a break for the elevator in just his socks and rumpled sleepwear, jabbing the lobby button and rocking back and forth anxiously as he waits for the doors to close. The descent feels impossibly slow.

In the lobby, he ignores the mildly disapproving look he gets from the auntie emerging from the opposite elevator and bursts through the front doors. Then, he stops dead as a gust of cool, dry wind scrapes at his mostly bare legs. Autumn has finally come.

Yuta is rooted to the ground in disbelief, unreasonably unsettled by the chill seeping through his thin socks and curling around his ears. This is normal, this is what it’s supposed to feel like outside, it’s nearly October, it makes _sense_. But he's stricken by a pang of mourning all the same.

The summer heat that draped itself thick and heavy over the city had become a constant he could rely on, even when he didn’t necessarily like it. Damp skin and midnight ice cream runs, dull boredom grown into quiet satisfaction, uncovering small joys as the days slipped by. A million mundane hours strung together into something that gave him peace in the end. 

Really, the heat had brought Taeyong, and when he left, he took it with him.

 

+

 

RECEIVED 2:03 PM

_Hi u are coming to lunch with me and jungwoo today_

 

SENT 2:05 PM

_no thanks_

 

RECEIVED 2:05 PM

_wasnt a question_

_u will come or never see ur manga collection again_

_it’s recycling day :)_

 

+

 

“I am a victim of blackmail,” Yuta informs Jungwoo over a steaming bowl of soup.

Ten swats at him as if he has the right to be offended, almost knocking over his glass of water. “It was for your own good!”

Jungwoo just gives Yuta that small, serene smile he hands out to everyone like candy and rearranges the utensils next to his plate. “Sorry it had to happen like this. Isn’t it a nice day, though?”

It would have been a better day if Yuta had not been brought along (under threat of personal attack) as the mildly voyeuristic spectator to Ten and Jungwoo’s overwhelmingly affectionate couple date, but he grudgingly withholds commentary because he’s that charming of an individual.

“Absolutely beautiful,” Ten chimes in, although his loving eye contact with Jungwoo makes it unclear whether he’s referring to the weather or to his boyfriend. 

Yuta takes a distinctly sullen slurp of his soup.

Before Ten can crawl into his lap altogether, Jungwoo subtly twists away and looks to Yuta again almost apologetically as though aware of how it stings to see them like this.

It’s not like Yuta to be bitter. Live and let live or whatever, right? Ten, though problematic in all imaginable aspects, deserves happiness like anyone else. No, the reason it stings is because in the aftermath of Taeyong’s departure, it dawns on Yuta how very close he’d been to having this himself, to own and to share.

He leans against the stiffly padded backing of the booth, trying to put some space between himself and the sparkling display of tenderness across the table. The ensuing conversation flows in and out of his consciousness, half attentive and half underwater. 

“Doyoung’s slipped back into his Western zodiac thing,” Ten is saying as Yuta refocuses. “I don’t know where he gets all this free time. It’s kind of amazing.” 

“I don’t know much about it myself,” says Jungwoo. 

“I do,” Ten tells him. “Secondhand knowledge because Doyoung doesn’t ever shut up. Did you know that Scorpio season starts next month? I think that means Yuta hyung is going to evolve into his final form.”

Yuta scoffs.

Jungwoo laughs softly. “As expected, ninety-five Scorpio. I like that username, by the way, hyung.”

The gears in Yuta’s brain grind to a stop so loudly that all the restaurant patrons must be able to hear it. Username? He had never once told anyone about the android help forum besides the very first time he and Ten had used it together, much less divulged his username. There’s no possible that way Jungwoo should know of his alter ego, so to speak, unless he’d been part of the forum himself. Unless he was... 

“What the fuck,” Yuta says so suddenly that Ten drops a forkful of salad onto his plate. Jungwoo looks at him evenly, unperturbed. 

“What’s wrong with you?” snaps Ten once he’s recovered. “Jungwoo was just being nice.” 

“No,” says Yuta, feeling approximately one metric liter of blood rush to his face in the space of only a few seconds. “Jungwoo has a secret online identity through which he heard everything I’ve ever said about Taeyong, every stupid thing, and he never thought to tell me.” 

“It wasn’t a secret,” says Jungwoo mildly. “You just never asked.” 

“I’m not in the mood to play this game.” Yuta is leaning forward now, fuming. Humiliated. Everything he said on the forum was under the condition that he could separate his online self from his real one, and for so long it had helped him compartmentalize the way he felt about Taeyong, what they were becoming. Sure, he noticed that _jwoos_ was kind of similar to Jungwoo’s name, but given that there are endless people in Seoul with names like that, too, he didn’t think twice about it.

“No games,” replies Jungwoo, raising his hands to his shoulders. “I figured you would have told everyone by now since the recall passed.” 

“Sorry, what exactly are we talking about?” interjects Ten. “I’m lost.”

Jungwoo breaks his roll of ciabatta in half with the nonchalance of a teacher or a long-suffering parent, someone who’s accustomed to being shouted at often by small children. “Yuta hyung and I were members of a help forum for SM android owners. This was supposed to be under wraps, apparently.”

Ten blinks at Yuta. “The one we found months ago? I didn’t know you still used it.” 

Yuta says nothing. A silent montage of every incriminating, emotional detail he’s ever let slip about Taeyong rolls through his mind. 

“Anyway, that’s not a big deal,” Ten continues. “I literally live with you. I know what you were like with Taeyong because I saw it with my own eyes every day.” 

Realistically, Yuta knows this to be true, just like he knows he doesn’t actually have anything to be angry at Jungwoo about. He really hadn’t ever asked, and from Jungwoo’s ultra-casual demeanor, it seems that he has no problem talking about it in person. Yuta just feels uncomfortably exposed with the comfort of anonymity torn away from him, like he had when he stood outside in only his socks, shivering.

He already regrets lashing out from embarrassment but doesn’t want to backtrack quite this fast, so instead he asks the question that’s been simmering at the back of mind since Jungwoo raised the topic. “Did you have an android too, then?”

Ten swivels around, his mouth falling into a perfect O. “Babe, did you?”

“No,” says Jungwoo, appearing perfectly content to leave it at that. Fortunately, Ten cannot stand leaving anything only halfway explained and whines and sticks out his bottom lip and tugs at his boyfriend’s sleeve until Jungwoo sighs in concession.

“My dad works at SM as a programmer,” he reveals rather reluctantly. “I grew up around their AI projects. This stuff has been in the works for basically my entire lifetime. I just… wanted to know what people on the outside thought about it, I guess.”

The vague ‘connection’ that Jungwoo had hinted about online comes back to Yuta in a rush. “How high of a position does he hold for you to know so much?”

Jungwoo folds his hands in his lap. “Department head for the past eight years.” 

Ten is gaping at Jungwoo like he’s never seen him before. Yuta’s reeling, too, but in a different way. If Jungwoo’s father commands the whole of the department that made Taeyong, he’s likely going to be closely involved with analyzing and reprogramming all the androids that were returned. He can see Taeyong whenever he wants—not that it would mean very much when he’s probably had a hand in creating hundreds of similar machines. 

The revelation makes Yuta’s throat constrict, _wanting_ and feeling ashamed of himself for so much as thinking about asking for it. He’d just exploded at Jungwoo, and in public,no less. He has absolutely no right to petition favors from someone he’d treated like that. Even if he were to apologize right now, which he will regardless, it would look like a soulless attempt to squeeze the guy for special treatment in regards to one of the most tightly secured, closely monitored laboratories in the country. No, he doesn’t get to do that.

Then, Jungwoo tilts his head and quirks his lips and says, “You really want to see him, don’t you?”

Yuta’s hand stills in the middle of bringing a spoonful of soup to his mouth. He’s unsure of how to answer. 

“He’d give anything, probably,” Ten says in his stead.

Yuta can’t flush at accusations like this anymore because they’re all correct, every one of them. He’s spent the last few weeks strung out tight and dead tired at the same time, missing Taeyong just about every waking minute. “More or less.”

“Well, I can get you in,” Jungwoo offers, and again Yuta is at a loss for words. 

“You don’t have to—that’s way too—God, fuck,” he stumbles. “Look, if you feel bad for outing me or something, I overreacted. I’m sorry for snapping at you, honest. I shouldn’t have done it. This is more than I could ever ask for.”

Jungwoo amusedly watches him trip his way through his sentences, one brow rising into an elegant arch. “Relax, hyung. I don’t blame you for getting upset. This isn’t much trouble for me since I can come and go whenever I want, and besides, I think it’d do you some good.” 

Yuta bites down hard on his bottom lip. It doesn’t feel right. 

“Don’t let your pride get in the way of something that could be healing for you,” adds Ten, cuddling into Jungwoo’s side. His salad wilts, forgotten and forlorn, as he busies himself with linking their fingers together. “Just say yes.”

So Yuta thinks about it a few minutes longer, then takes Jungwoo’s free hand (surprising both him and Ten quite a bit) to thank him profusely.

After one last steadying breath, he accepts.

 

+

 

“Button your coat before you head out,” calls Ten. “It’s only getting colder.”

Yuta pauses in the middle of the text he’s sending to Jungwoo, impressed. Considering that they’re in different rooms, how Ten instinctively knew that he only half-shrugged on his coat is a mystery. He buttons it properly as he walks into the living room, where Ten hangs limply off the couch.

“All done,” he drawls, gesturing to his outfit.

Ten doesn’t divert his attention from the essay he’s working on, probably only hours away from being overdue. “Scarf?”

Yuta rolls his eyes. “It’s not that cold! I’m not going to die if I leave like this.” 

“Yeah, but I worry about you,” says Ten, still typing. 

Sometimes, Ten will say things like this jokingly so he has an excuse to fuss at Yuta for being a disorganized mess even though he himself is hardly any better, and then they laugh about it. This time, though, it’s strangely devoid of humor. Yuta’s glad that Ten’s eyes remain trained on his laptop screen and shielded by large glasses so that they don’t have to make awkwardly sincere eye contact. 

“I’ll bring the scarf,” he acquiesces quietly. “In case I need it.” 

“Good.” The velocity of Ten’s fingers flying across the keys starts to pick up. “Now hurry. Jungwoo’s gonna be there by 10:30 and there’s no way you’re getting inside without him.”

Yuta produces some lilting noise of assent as he drapes the scarf over his shoulders and slips out. He hopes the station won’t be too busy today, seeing as the worst of the work commute had fizzled out hours ago. Ideally, he would have chosen a later time, another day, but everything about this visit depends on Jungwoo and Yuta’s not in a position to do anything but be grateful.

The ride to Cheongdam-dong, though brief, is plenty long enough for Yuta’s stomach to start twisting itself into knots. It doesn't help that the SM Industries main building turns out to be a thousand times more intimidating in person than in the photos or even virtual tours; there's something about the light glinting off its wicked angles of glass and titanium that makes it seem not quite of this world, a gateway to another dimension.

Squaring his shoulders, Yuta enters. 

Upon stepping inside, the foyer looks innocuous enough with its potted plants and sparkling tile, and there's even piano music tinkling down over surround-sound speakers. He's almost disappointed at the normality of it all but promptly reminds himself that the real shit goes on behind closed doors.

The receptionist does take him by surprise when she inquires as to whether or not he needs any help, but only because of her eyes: vividly blue, they glow subtly within her face. She's a service android, the kind that mostly function as secretaries and the like, but her make and model must be years ahead of the rest of the market.

Yuta politely declines, telling her that he’s made an appointment to see someone (not strictly false) but a building map might be useful.

He isn't prepared for her eyes to project two beams of bluish light that assemble into a holographic replica of the building, detailed down to the suite numbers. It unnerves him so much that he almost walks backwards into a bonsai before asking her to please turn that off, and then he collapses shakily into a nice plush chair helpfully positioned just below him to catch his breath.

Yuta really can't be acting like this. If he's going to walk into an actual lab and see SM's latest bioengineering pursuits only meters away from his nose, flailing in shock would undoubtedly get him hauled out onto the street. 

So, he focuses on steeling his nerves until Jungwoo arrives at 10:30 exactly, rosy-cheeked from the biting wind. He seems almost out of place save for the air of subtle confidence about him.

“Hi, Yuta hyung,” he says pleasantly. “Just a sec.” 

Over the course of the next few minutes, Jungwoo procures a nondisclosure agreement from the receptionist, weathers Yuta’s minor panic over the need to sign a nondisclosure agreement because _what exactly are you going to show me in there_ , files it himself, and ushers Yuta through the fingerprint and retina scanning gate on the far wall that he unlocks as easy as you would your front door. 

Yuta fights valiantly to remain calm. He's here for Taeyong, that's all. None of the rest matters. 

“My dad is pretty tied up today so he can't let you in to the NCT127 holding lab,” Jungwoo is saying as he leads Yuta through a maze of hallways and into a glass-walled elevator. “But that's fine. One of the head techs down there kind of owes me.”

A distracted nod is all he gets from Yuta in response. The elevator drops disarmingly fast, then opens into a sleek basement filled with watery artificial light and reflective surfaces in all directions. A dozen mirror-versions of Yuta and Jungwoo trail them through the corridor, proportions oddly distorted. 

“Oh, there he is. Baekhyun hyung!”

Yuta looks up to see a slight man in a lab coat emerge from a room a few doors down. His cheeks round like dumplings when he smiles at the two of them in response to Jungwoo's call.

“You must be Yuta-ssi,” he says, closing the distance in a few brisk strides. “It's a pleasure.” His handshake is almost bruisingly tight, a stark contrast to his baby face. 

“Likewise,” Yuta returns while steadily losing feeling in his fingers. 

“Well,” announces Jungwoo, “this is where my part of the tour ends.” His tone is a few shades away from regretful. “I have to make it up to the seventh floor in the next two minutes, but hyung will take good care of you.” 

With a tired smile and a pat on Yuta’s wrist, Jungwoo is gone. This leaves Yuta to follow aggressively amiable lab tech Baekhyun all the way down the corridor, their steps echoing louder in the absence of conversation. The NCT127 holding room turns out to be the very last one. 

“You sure you’re ready for this? It’s not for the faint of heart,” prods Baekhyun, somehow content to make conversation while his eyeballs and vital signs are being analyzed by some apparatus on the ceiling. 

Yuta thinks about Taeyong and sets his jaw resolutely. “Whatever it is, I can handle it.”

Baekhyun shrugs. “A favor is a favor. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

The door slides open, butter-smooth, and Yuta follows him inside.

 

+

 

The first thing Yuta registers is the light. Bright as day, it bounces off sterile white walls to illuminate every corner of the laboratory so clearly that he needs a moment to adjust. The second thing is the enormous workstation in the center of the room, designed like a rotating wheel laid flat on its side with thick grooves along the edge. 

“Don’t even think about touching anything or you’ll get sued within an inch of your life,” says Baekhyun conversationally. 

Yuta grimaces. “Naturally.”

Upon further examination of the lab, he doesn’t see anywhere in particular that stacks of powered-down androids could be hiding; most of the remaining space is dominated by giant touchscreen monitors and what appear to be spare parts. He shudders when something morbidly similar to an amputated human hand catches his eye, turning deliberately to face the opposite way. “So, uh. Where are the actual androids?”

“You'll see,” Baekhyun hums, polishing the corner of one of the screens with his sleeve. “Let me run a system diagnostic before we get too wild. It’s a monthly procedure, unfortunately, but I’ll only be a minute.” 

Yuta shoves both hands firmly into his coat pockets to minimize the chance that he’ll bump into some fragile piece of equipment in the meantime. “Isn’t it a little shady that I’m in here, by the way? I mean, I’m sure there are cameras.”

“Sixty, to be exact.” Baekhyun’s coat-clad back bunches up in a shrug. “But it’s not too suspect. Investors, new hires, all kinds of people come and go. If you do your paperwork and get someone with clearance to let you in, there’s a small chance you’ll get investigated. In fact, it's actually been extra busy around here lately, what with the whole decision to scrap the home launch plan.”

“What?” says Yuta.

“What?” parrots Baekhyun, perfectly innocent as he settles into an ergonomic chair and fires up a monitor with quick, practiced swipes. “I didn’t say anything.” 

There’s a flightiness to his eyes that suggests he’s already divulged more than necessary and it makes Yuta wonder how this guy has been approved to work in such a secretive industry, anyway. He has to be fantastic at what he does. Come to think of it, his big mouth might be the reason why he mysteriously owes Jungwoo in the first place. 

“No, you said they’re getting rid of the home launch plan,” insists Yuta. “Was that supposed to be endgame for the androids that were released a while back?”

“God, you’re nosy,” Baekhyun says like he hadn’t introduced the subject himself. “It was, at first. If you must know, the responses to the feedback form we had every host complete weren’t all that hot.” 

This makes absolutely no sense to Yuta, who can’t imagine anyone not wanting to be with Taeyong. “Not following.”

“Well, we were a little taken aback too, but it went like this. They were perfect when they arrived, right? A personal assistant in its most personal form yet. Then, as we’re going over the ratings, we see a downward trend directly correlating to how long the droids have been around, and the written reviews make everything come together. Turns out that this project was a little _too_ personal.” When Yuta doesn’t reply, Baekhyun spins around in his chair and steeples his fingers. “They were too realistic to be palatable, Yuta-ssi. The vast majority of hosts began to feel unsettled by their displays of humanity, some even going as far as to use the word ‘threatened.’ 94% of respondents said they wouldn’t welcome the androids back into their homes.”

Yuta stands stock-still in the corner, unable to string together enough coherent words to produce a sentence. Never had he imagined that the reaction would be like this. Yeah, he himself had been distrustful of Taeyong when he’d only arrived, and it took a long time to remedy that, but it was Taeyong’s gradual humanization, his capacity for growth, that opened Yuta up to him. To hear that a host of androids all over the city, every one of them exactly as trusting as the one he’d known, were rejected as threats for displaying precisely the same traits… it makes Yuta’s stomach churn with an emotion far more poignant than simple nervousness.

“People became afraid of them,” he says after a long silence.

The shine in Baekhyun’s eyes dampens a fraction. “Yeah, that’s the essence of it. Shame, too, because the programming scripts we wrote were absolutely gorgeous. I guess society still isn’t ready to integrate on that level.” 

A film of sweat coats Yuta’s palms now, tensed up as they are in his pockets. “So what happens to the androids that were returned? Are you going to—” 

The severed hand discarded so casually on the floor flashes into mind, and Yuta viciously battles the rising urge to gag. 

“Oh, we found a pretty cool solution, actually,” says Baekhyun, brightening again. A few flourishes across the screen trigger the opening of a compartment in the wall, painted white to blend in. From inside it, he withdraws a flat, chrome console about the diameter and thickness of a hockey puck. “They go in here.”

Yuta stares at the tiny disk. Surely Baekhyun is joking. 

“Pretty sure these aren’t supposed to be shown to outsiders, but, well, you signed the NDA and the prosecution team will have your head on a platter if you breathe a single word, so it should be alright.” 

“They go inside… that little thing,” says Yuta. “Contained. Wholly." 

“On all levels except physical,” Baekhyun affirms. A sharp tap to the top of the console makes the band around its base glow the same fluorescent shade of blue as the receptionist’s eyes, and then the small, flickering image of a doe-eyed girl appears above it, her feet suspended a few centimeters from the surface. “This prototype was taken from an RV814 model. We named her Joy.” 

Joy beams at them and does a little wave, looking like a captured fairy. She doesn't speak.

“Still working on the voice mods,” says Baekhyun apologetically, deftly switching it off. 

“But where's her body?” Yuta demands, only peripherally aware that his tone is barreling past anything that could be considered polite. “Her real one? She used to have one, didn't she?” 

“The ‘real body’ you're referring to is just a shell.” Baekhyun frowns, slides Joy's console back into the wall compartment he'd removed it from. “This is AI, Yuta-ssi. The physicality is arbitrary. Joy is a consciousness, not a person.”

Yuta feels sick. A consciousness? No, that's not Taeyong. His Taeyong is more.

“You just transfer their entire _selves_ into these things and scrap the corpse? Is that it?” 

“Your choice in terminology is concerning, but that’s the gist. Business is business, after all, and there’s no use holding onto what won’t sell. Plus, the CFO had the foresight to develop a backup plan in case the staggered launch didn’t go as well as planned. They’re prepping for a mini merger with an entertainment company, can you believe that?” Baekhyun gives a short laugh. “All the hyperrealistic details and sensory tech we spent the better part of the decade perfecting are gonna go into producing android idol groups!" 

His chuckling peters off awkwardly when he sees that Yuta looks two seconds away from vomiting. 

“Let me see him,” rasps Yuta, wincing at the grating edge that his voice has taken on. “Please.”

Baekhyun rubs at his temple. “I’m assuming you mean the droid you hosted.” The piercing, desperate stare he receives is confirmation enough. “Right, well, we haven’t gotten around to transplanting the NCT’s yet, so you’re in luck. They’re all sealed up in sleeper pods, anyway.”

He enters a long, complex string of numbers and symbols into the monitor that makes the laboratory’s furthest wall quiver until it rises on slick hinges into the ceiling, revealing a dim, garage-like storage room behind it. Yuta follows him inside with a shiver, simultaneously terrified of what he’ll see and convinced that he has to see it, even if it hurts. There’s no point in having come this far and then turning around.

As they venture out of the brightly lit main lab, Yuta’s sense of foreboding grows exponentially. He can begin to make out rows of ovoid shapes lined up inside the storage room, a dormant army, a fleet abandoned.

“What model did you host?”

Yuta’s eyes shutter closed, thinking of Taeyong sitting up for the first time in the ridiculously large box he’d been shipped within, reaching out to shake his hand. “The TY.” 

“JN, MK, TI…” Baekhyun trails a hand over the thick glass plates embedded like windows into the pods’ glinting surfaces. “Here we are.”

When Yuta steps close enough to see through the glass, all the air in his chest exits immediately, leaving him feeling like he’s folding in on himself. It’s all he can do not to keel over right there on the gritty floor.

Taeyong’s slack face is clearly recognizable despite the murky shadows cast on his features, hugging his cheekbones and obscuring his mouth. His hair is in slight disarray as if he’d been shoved inside the pod then promptly forgotten about. Worst of all, his eyes are open. There’s not a single spark in them left to detect, his gaze dull and dead. A goldfish doomed to stare through its tank at the world beyond, unaware of its own confines. 

Some mangled, choked sound claws its way out from between Yuta's lips. His hands splay flat against the cold glass. “I’m sorry,” he gasps, like a confession, like he could have possibly done anything to stop this. Slowly, his forehead falls against the pod with a heavy thud. “I'm so sorry, Taeyongie.”

Baekhyun clears his throat uncomfortably behind him. “Please don't touch.”

Yuta is several beats too slow to pull away. He tries to be discreet in running his sleeve over his eyes, but the tears refill stubbornly after each swipe, hot and furious. Finally, he gives up and faces the other with his blotchy face and trembling lip in full view. 

“Look,” starts Baekhyun, not unkindly. “Bringing you in here was a lot more than my favor to Jungwoo was worth, but I did it anyway, because it seemed like it meant something to you. With the reaction it's produced, though, this doesn't seem to have been the right choice.” 

“I _needed_ to see it,” Yuta tries to explain, but his voice breaks halfway through. Two fat tears spill down his cheeks unbidden.

Baekhyun's hand settles against his upper back, as gentle as it is firm. “You should go home, Yuta-ssi.”

 

+

 

12 UNREAD, 3 MISSED CALLS

 

RECEIVED 11:58 AM **JUNGWOO**

_hyung did you leave already?_

 

RECEIVED 12:40 PM **TEN**

_jungwoo says he didn't catch u on the way out?_

_did u just dip w/o telling anyone_

_shouldve let him know at least_

 

RECEIVED 3:25 PM **TEN**

_Hey where are u????_

(MISSED CALL. CALL BACK?)

 

RECEIVED 6:30 PM **JAEHYUN**

_hyung are you ok?_

_text or call_

 

RECEIVED 6:43 PM **DOYOUNG**

(MISSED CALL. CALL BACK?)

_Why aren't you answering did something happen???_

_Text/call when you can_

_Send a voice memo I don't care_

_Just let us know_

 

RECEIVED 8:12 PM **SICHENG**

(MISSED CALL. CALL BACK?)

_Yuta hyung please we're getting nervous_

 

+

 

Ten pounces on Yuta as soon as he walks through the door with all the ferocity of an anxious mother and no preamble whatsoever.

“Where the actual fuck have you been?” he hisses. His glasses are slightly askew and his hair is sticking up at odd angles. “Do you know how freaked out everyone was? You vanish from the SM building like smoke and dodge our calls the _whole day_? I was starting to think the scientists strapped you down to a table and took you hostage as their next experiment.”

“Sorry,” says Yuta blandly. “Ran some errands.”

“Really? Where?” Ten challenges.

Yuta divests himself of his coat quietly.

“That's what I thought.” Ten pushes a hand through his already messy hair, leaving it even wilder than before. “I don't care what you were doing, but why didn't you reply to me? Or any of us?”

“My phone died.” This, at least, is true.

“We've been texting you since noon,” snaps Ten. “Look, it's none of my business what you get up to and I know that. But with the state you've been in the past few weeks, I thought… maybe seeing Taeyong was too much and you…” Averting his eyes briefly, he coughs into his hand. “I don't know what I thought.”

“Hey,” says Yuta, softening slightly. “I wouldn't do anything crazy. I just needed space, I guess.”

He drapes his coat over the back of the couch carelessly, turning on the lights as he goes to brighten the dim apartment. With fluorescent overhead beams now throwing his swollen, drawn face into sharper focus, Ten pauses.

“Have you been crying?” 

Yuta ignores the question, turning to the side so his face won't be seen. “Didn't mean to worry you guys,” he mutters. “Won't do it again. Night.”

Despite the fact that it's only half past nine, Yuta drifts into his room and collapses on top of his bed, wrung out. Normally, he hates to let the clothes he wears outside touch clean sheets, but there isn't an ounce of energy left in his body to lift him to a standing position again. He just lies there in the dark, thinking.

After leaving the SM building, Yuta had wandered around for hours without any particular direction. Cheongdam-dong is a far wealthier area than theirs, meaning that the businesses and storefronts are accordingly more high tech. Banks, boutiques, and even restaurants are replete with service androids. Though light years away from Taeyong in terms of sophistication, they fulfill their intended purposes fine, dimensionless silver faces mixing effortlessly with those of people going about their daily lives. 

For all Yuta knows, the kind-eyed ahjumma at the station or the suit-clad man that almost missed his stop due to napping on the train could have hosted androids of their own. Could've been expecting servants or glorified housekeepers and grown increasingly alarmed as they demonstrated human-like traits. Maybe even despised them by the end of the trial.

And now that the overwhelming consensus is that Taeyong and his kind are dangerous to the livelihoods of regular citizens, all those androids will be repackaged to be less threatening, more appetizing, dumbed down. Yuta hates the idea with every fiber of his being, but he doesn't have the power to change it.

The weeks that follow are painfully slow.

It’s the small, unavoidable things that inexplicably become the hardest. Yuta goes to class the way you swallow medicine, reluctantly, but with the knowledge that things will only get worse if you don't. 

Either Doyoung or Jaehyun always seems to be at their place, apparently spooked enough by Yuta's one-time disappearing act that they feel obligated to keep tabs on him. And that's fine, Yuta supposes. They can hang around and carefully pretend that they're just visiting as much as they want, because it's not like he's any more eager to make conversation when he has company than when he doesn't. 

Even Sicheng joins the rotations, though less frequently because of his rigorous dance practice schedule. That's fine, too. He doesn't hover over Yuta like the other two, instead preferring to watch dramas on their couch in silence. The reminder of Taeyong is painful, but Yuta appreciates the relative peace and quiet. In this respect, like almost all others, Sicheng remains his favorite, and Doyoung’s passing remark about it is the closest anyone gets to making Yuta laugh all month.

In the small part of his mind that still knows how to process situations logically, Yuta’s aware that the rut he's fallen into is unhealthy. The way he's been acting is so far out of character that his friends’ concern is understandable. At the same time, he doesn't know how to navigate back to who he was before this summer, and faking cheer isn't as easy as it used to be.

 _Everyone burns out sometime_ is how he attempts to defend it to himself, alone in his room one evening. He's unsuccessful. 

Absentmindedly, Yuta reaches for the manga shelf above his bed and thumbs at the edge of an old volume of One Piece. He hasn’t touched the series at all over the past couple months because he’s come to associate it so strongly with Taeyong lingering by his shoulder, at his side, a warmth and a hum and a peal of soft laughter. This particular volume had been Taeyong’s favorite because it marked the first time he’d been able to sound out a few short dialogue bubbles, his Japanese choppy but determined.

Yuta opens the cover and startles when a small piece of paper slides out, landing neatly in his lap. It’s folded crisply into a square with _To Yuta_ inked onto the front. The handwriting is blocky and neat, so uniform that it looks like a font. Everyone Yuta knows has shitty, scrawling penmanship born from hardly ever having to pick up an actual pen, which leaves only one person he can think of who would write with such calligraphic precision. His heart performs a treacherous leap into his throat.

He unfolds it with almost reverent caution.

At the very top, he can see that a formal salutation has been crossed through in favor of a more neutral _Hi_ , and it makes him smile despite himself.

_I don’t know if you will see this. Ten advised me to place it here because he said you would not accept if presented with it directly, so the odds are better this way. I hope he is right._

_I have prepared this note because I am leaving tomorrow and I suspect you will be averse to discussing this more than absolutely necessary. That’s fine. I just wanted you to know these things in case I cannot tell you myself._  

_You gave me experiences I did not know existed. Beyond being happy and sad, you showed me what it’s like to care and be cared for. I did not know what that felt like, but now that I do, I think I will miss it very much. You also showed me what it’s like to be lonely. I see it on you sometimes, especially when you talk about your family. I hope you remember that friends are family, too. If I could stay longer, I would have liked to be part of it. Still, I am on your side. I am certain this is something distance cannot change._

_I don’t know if I am doing this correctly. Ten said this is called a love letter. I call it a thank you letter. Although, after giving it some consideration, I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive._  

 _If we meet again, maybe you can tell me more about that._  

 _Taeyong_  

Yuta reads and rereads the note in its entirety until each word is seared into the backs of his eyelids and he can recite it blind. Fingers the creases of the page like the inflection of Taeyong’s voice is hiding somewhere within them. He doesn’t notice the sun setting until the room is suddenly too dark to discern the crisply printed characters, at which point he falls back on the bed and whispers it to himself from memory.

In the end, he can’t bring himself to slip the paper back where it had been hidden and tucks it underneath his pillow instead, a small comfort to help him sleep. This is the closest he’s ever gotten to holding Taeyong through the night. 

When morning comes, he fishes it out as soon as he wakes and scans it again from start to finish, imagining for a moment that soon he’ll hear the telltale clang of Taeyong hefting a pan onto the stove or his voice calling Yuta to breakfast. If he rounds the corner, he can press drowsily against the lean line of Taeyong’s back and stroke a lazy hand at his waist where the strings of his too-long apron are tied. Taeyong will smile and half-scold him for coming to the breakfast table without washing up, and Yuta will mumble excuses into his neck, unintelligible because of the kisses he’ll drop against humming skin, before shuffling off to do as he’s told. Later, they'll do the dishes side by side and flick soap bubbles at each other, competing to blow the biggest ones that shimmer all colors in the thin morning light.

Then his backup alarm goes off and the fantasy pops, vanishes, a wistful bubble of its own.

 

+

 

( **CLOSED FORUM** )

 

95scorpio: hi

is anyone still here

 

mochisung: Hi

 

95scorpio: oh it’s you

how’s it going

 

mochisung: bored

all the time

Theres nothing to do and nobody comes on here anymore

 

95scorpio: arent you in high school? dont u have friends irl

or exams to study for or something

 

mochisung: School is too easy i dont study

 

95scorpio: wow ok

what about friends though

 

mochisung: No

im a lot younger than everybody else at school i cant really talk to them

 

95scorpio: siblings?

 

mochisung: brother works outside of seoul

 

95scorpio: it must have been really nice then

to have an android around

 

mochisung: Are u pitying me. i dont need that

 

95scorpio: no i meant that i understand. they’re good company

the one who lived with me was named taeyong

i felt like i could tell him anything haha

 

_mochisung is typing…_

 

mochisung: Mine was named Jaemin

 

95scorpio: thats a pretty name

 

mochisung: He had pink hair

like bubblegum pink

and he smiled so wide

He was fun

 

_95scorpio is typing…_

 

mochisung: actually I signed up for this program from an engineering and robotics standpoint to study the wiring of SM bots up close. ive wanted to work there forever so i thought it would be a good project for me to take on

and like i got all of that but jaemin was nice too. and i could talk to him about everything and he didnt make me feel like a freak or whatever for knowing things or talking weird and even when we just sat quietly sometimes without doing anything it was easy. and i was happy

But since hes gone now no one is really home again

 

95scorpio: you must miss him a lot

 

mochisung: Yeah

i guess u miss taeyong

 

95scorpio: every day

i’m sorry they both had to go

 

mochisung: Me too

 

+

 

Sometimes, Yuta feels he might be getting close to doing okay again, and then he trips on a roadblock he didn’t know to watch out for and he’s tumbling down all over again. 

Jaehyun sits cross-legged on the bedroom floor with a takeout box balanced in his lap. He’s already offered some to Yuta three separate times only to be declined thrice in succession, and finally he says, “Hyung, you can’t keep doing this.”

“I’m not hungry,” says Yuta, and Jaehyun shakes his head, a crease forming between brows. Combined with the way his lips pull down, the crinkles age his face oddly, as if very subtly distorted by a camera filter.

“That’s not really what I meant. When was the last time you did something for yourself just because you wanted it?”

“Not sure,” says Yuta. It feels like the wrong answer.

“Know why we’re so worried?” asks Jaehyun. He doesn’t give Yuta any time to deliberate before he forges onward. “It’s because we’ve seen you go through breakups, we’ve _seen_ you go through really rough patches and you never once acted like this. I’m not telling you to grin and bear it, but keeping everything bottled up inside isn’t doing yourself any favors either.”

Yuta sighs and sits up in bed. “When did my dongsaeng get so wise? You’re supposed to be the less mature one. The least you could do is play the part.” He reaches out to pinch Jaehyun’s cheek but his hand is batted away, which he figures he deserves. 

“You do get it, right?” Jaehyun puts his chopsticks down, sets the bowl of jjajangmyeon precariously balanced between his knees aside. “In all the time we’ve known each other, you haven’t ever been this heartbroken.”

“That’s a pretty strong word,” says Yuta.

“I don’t know, hyung. I think it’s exactly the right word.”

They kind of assess each other for a moment. Jaehyun looks sincere, disarmingly so, in a way that he can’t often muster up the courage to be. Hesitantly, he adds, “I guess it might not seem all that easy right now, but. Life keeps moving forward, you know?”

Yuta knows this, of course, but just sitting on the fact doesn’t help accelerate his healing time—and it’s not for lack of trying. He repeats it to himself constantly in the hopes that he can persuade the hurt away, but the syllables of the mantra land tinny, empty, again and again.

The next day during his anthro lecture, someone brings up the topic of artificial intelligence and starts a massive debate about whether or not they’re truly capable of emulating human characteristics. Someone chimes in with the opinion that in the next fifty years, they’ll become a fixture of modern society as essential and normalized as industrial machinery. The discourse gives Yuta a headache. 

The guy next to him asks for his thoughts since Yuta has something of a reputation for being well-spoken. This was true once: he used to have plenty to contribute to discussions like these back when he held a radically different opinion. The present day is a different story, though. Quite frankly, Yuta doesn’t think he’s said one eloquent sentence all semester. 

“Does it matter whether they’re human or not?” is what Yuta ends up saying tiredly. “Artificial sentience is sentience all the same.”

This guy, whose name Yuta cannot remember for the life of him, leans forward in interest. “Fascinating. What makes you say that?”

Yuta doesn’t have the patience, the wherewithal, the anything required to partake in a pseudo-intellectual argument this early in the week. “It’s just how I feel,” he concludes, cavalier, and then he ditches his remaining classes to go home and take a nap. 

If he squints, this can pass as the self-care that Jaehyun likes to go on about, right? He’s doing something for himself.

This mindset lasts all of five minutes before Yuta groans miserably and pulls the covers over his head, a futile attempt to shut out everything plaguing him. 

He imagines Taeyong sitting on the end of his bed, wearing covertly stolen clothes and tugging the bedspread straight. “Yuta,” he would start, “you shouldn’t skip class whenever you feel like it. Your education is irreplaceable.” Or something to that effect, anyway, chastising yet soft. Then Yuta would make some smartass comment, probably, and they’d lean into each other’s space until their fingers could thread together, and ideally they’d stay like that for a while.

It feels unfair that every time he makes an active step towards restabilizing his life, a reminder of Taeyong socks him squarely in the face and he’s pulled back under. It feels like… grief. Is he even allowed to call it that? It sounds so pointless and overdramatic to grieve for something you only had for a few months.

But it’s not the same as a breakup or a falling out because in Taeyong’s case, those few months were quite literally all they had. This was Taeyong’s whole world. They lacked the time to explore beyond the most basic of boundaries, even though there was so much Yuta had yet to show him. When the day of his departure came, they’d only just begun to hit their stride.

That’s why it’s grief, Yuta concludes, and why he’ll allow himself to recognize it as such. Because Taeyong’s life—in this sphere of existence, at least—had just started, and now they’re going to sever him from his body and his memory and recycle the leftovers. Unlike Yuta, Taeyong doesn’t get to heal on his own after parting ways because his existence hovers between a few lines of code, and if someone pulls the plug for good, well, there’s nothing more to be done.

Yuta presses his face into the pillow to muffle his mouth in case he does something stupid like cry again, and upon doing so hears the fragile paper of Taeyong’s note crunch ever so slightly as it slides against his pillowcase.

Carefully, he retrieves it from underneath the pillow and smooths it flat. This time, he falls asleep with the note clutched to his chest.

 

+

 

Out of all the people Yuta expects to message him on a Sunday afternoon, Kim Jungwoo does not come anywhere close to topping the list.

The message itself isn’t anything groundbreaking ( _“hi hyung, are you free for coffee?”)_ , but the contact itself is. Yuta hasn’t spoken to Jungwoo over text or in person since the disastrous lab visit of several weeks ago, and truth be told, he isn’t sure he wants to. He’s been standoffish enough with his actual friends; despite all the strange links that tie them together, Jungwoo is still firmly entrenched in acquaintance territory.

He doesn’t know what compels him to say yes. 

Maybe, he thinks while lethargically getting dressed, it’s the fact that they sort of have unfinished business after Jungwoo dumped Yuta in the SM basement before disappearing (and Yuta subsequently vanished from the premises without letting him know). More likely, it’s the strange energy that Jungwoo gives off, like he knows something you don’t but he’s keeping quiet about it. Yuta could do with some answers.

Ten isn’t around to gasp at the prospect of him voluntarily leaving his bed because he’s attending some contemporary dance workshop with Sicheng. All the better, really. While Yuta isn’t exactly trying to be secretive, he could do without the needling today.

Yuta’s phone notifies him that his maglev pass only has two more scans left on it, which is just enough to make it to the cafe and back. He’ll have to remember to renew it tonight because he’s got class tomorrow, and as streamlined as Seoul public transport has become, it’s unlikely that his transaction will be processed the morning of. Jungwoo had better make this meeting worth his time. 

He arrives at the coffeehouse, a trendy, minimalist type of place he hasn’t visited before, to find Jungwoo waiting at the corner table. There are two drinks laid out in front of him. 

“I didn’t know what you liked, so I got us both lattes,” Jungwoo says in place of a hello.

A little taken aback, Yuta pulls out a chair and draws one of the cups closer to him. “That’s fine, thanks. You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to.” Jungwoo shrugs. “I’m the one who asked you to come out here, and I know it’s not exactly close to home.”

“Yeah, I was wondering about that. We live in the same building. How come you’re all the way out here?” 

“It’s closer to work.” Jungwoo takes a tiny sip of his latte, wary of burning his tongue. “I intern at SM. Have been for the past few months, actually.”

Of course he does. By now, Yuta is numbed past the point of shock, having accepted that Jungwoo is someone who reveals things in pieces instead of entire truths like that’s the only way to go about it. He cups his hands around his own drink placidly. “Internship, huh? Nothing like good old fashioned nepotism.” 

Jungwoo flushes slightly but doesn’t deny it, which gives Yuta some small satisfaction. “Look, I realize that the things you saw down in the labs were… troubling. I asked Baekhyun hyung what might’ve happened for you to run out like that and even though he didn’t give me many details, I could tell it was beyond the ordinary. So, I did some digging of my own and ended up finding about the relaunch cancellation.”

Yuta’s face must betray something raw because Jungwoo hastens to add, “We’re not here to rehash that experience, though. The opposite, even. I think I know how you can get Taeyong back.” 

At these last words, Yuta’s sharp inhale catches in his chest, then expands so wide he feels like he’s taking the first breath of his life. “Don’t fuck with me, Kim Jungwoo,” he warns, voice wavering. “Don’t you fucking dare. If this is some kind of joke—”

“It’s not.” Jungwoo bends over to pull a slim tablet out of his bag and lays it flat on the table. “I’ve been thinking about this the whole week. I read back through all the terms and conditions of the staggered launch initiative, compiled company statements, and did some independent programming research. Believe me, hyung, I’m serious.”

Leaning over to peer at the documents Jungwoo is opening one by one, Yuta realizes that no understatements were made. He’s accumulated a massive amount of data, all neatly categorized by type and date in an endless series of folders.

“Why?” he asks. 

He doesn’t mean to sound suspicious in the face of a genuine attempt to help, but it doesn’t make sense. Jungwoo had only encountered Taeyong in person a handful of times and held a conversation with him even less. He lacks the personal connection that the rest of Yuta’s circle had formed, making his interest in helping Yuta more bizarre and complex than a knee-jerk act of altruism.

Jungwoo stops flicking through digital forms for a moment. “Well. It wasn’t until lately that I’ve been able to interact with the programs used in the recalled androids. I knew they were intricate, but the actual _degree_ turned out to be just—unimaginable.” His eyes fix on a point somewhere beyond Yuta’s shoulder. “All that trailblazing innovation, all the years of work that went into making it possible… and they want to restructure everything to advance in the idol industry, of all things? Because it’s more friendly to the public? It’s unimaginable.”

“You want to preserve the purpose your dad’s been working towards for so long,” asserts Yuta, beginning to catch on now. “So that all his original goals are realized. You said you were raised around this project, right?”

“Yeah.” Jungwoo toys with the lid of his coffee cup, still somewhat lost in the reverie he’d slipped into while explaining. “This launch was everything to my dad. And by proxy, I think it kind of developed meaning for me, too. I don’t want to see it wither like this.”

“I can understand that,” says Yuta honestly. “Don’t know what Taeyong has to do with it, though.” 

At this, Jungwoo looks up, refocusing. “Right. Here’s the basic idea. Instead of deactivating Taeyong permanently, SM can release him back to live with you and Ten under the condition that he comes back in at regular intervals for a routine system examination. That way, you get to stay with him, and the company gets a continuous data mine of information on the way that their AI tech adapts to interpersonal relationships.”

“Like an ongoing case study,” says Yuta slowly. 

“Exactly. Both sides get something out of it.” Jungwoo’s opening some sort of calendar on his tablet, where a date in early November appears to be highlighted. Yuta can’t tell what’s written below it from across the table, but it seems important. “On this day, the 6th of November, they’re due to start transplanting the two NCT lines into prototype consoles. This coming Thursday, I’m supposed to submit a quarterly report to my supervisor. If I include my proposal in the report—with all the facts, an algorithm to run the cost-benefit analysis, the works—that gives the corporate strategy team about two weeks to make their decision.”

They talk through the finer details for a while, providing Yuta with ample time to think it over. Now that he has a better handle on Jungwoo’s motivations and a timeline laid out, the plan seems nearly feasible. He doesn’t want to get his hopes up only to have them crushed in two weeks’ time, but there’s a loud, fiercely yearning part of him that wants to have faith. 

“It’s a shame about the other androids, though,” murmurs Jungwoo as he closes the files. “Their hosts don’t want them back. If all goes well, I hope some public interest is renewed further down the line.”

Suddenly, Yuta is hit with a reminder. “Actually, there is one. I don’t know his name, but I do know that he misses his android a lot. You remember that mochi kid from the forum?” 

“Oh, yeah, I stopped using it a while ago. I didn’t know you still did.”

Refusing to feel embarrassed, Yuta forges on. “Well, he hosted an android named Jaemin. If you got him re-released from the lab along with Taeyong, it could benefit your research—having two systems to mine data from is better than just one, right? Plus, Mochi is a baby genius or something. Working at SM is his dream. I’m sure he could be helpful when future projects get underway.”

Jungwoo, perceptive as ever, says, “And?” 

Yuta sags and swirls his cup around, lid discarded, watching the dregs of coffee move in circles. “Honestly, the kid seems really lonely. I think Jaemin was his best friend.”

“I see.” A flicker of something doleful and empathetic crossed Jungwoo’s face, then vanishes as quickly as it had appeared. “I’ll try my best.”

They stand and gather their things soon afterwards. Yuta’s head is spinning, still struggling to process everything that just occurred, but the heaviness that’s been following him for so long that he’d begun to accept it as unshakable is noticeably diminished. Maybe the version of himself that remembers what optimism feels like is resurfacing.

“I don’t know how to thank you enough for this,” he says. “Just for trying.” 

Jungwoo flattens the lapels of his coat and sends him that signature close-lipped smile. “Who said I’m doing this for you, hyung? This is for my father’s research and my own career.” His eyes are warm, though, and Yuta thinks he understands what Jungwoo is trying to get across.

He offers a matching smile in return and is surprised to discover that he’s not even forcing it anymore.

 

+

 

Time starts to run together after that, the edges that define hours from each other becoming increasingly blurred. Yuta is unsure if having something to look forward to makes the monotony of daily life any better. Right now, it mostly feels like torture.

His birthday passes without incident; he had a presentation to give that day and everyone else was similarly swamped with deadlines. However, Ten insists on celebrating and cajoles Doyoung (read: pressures Jaehyun to convince Doyoung) into treating them to dinner between Yuta’s birthday and Sicheng’s. 

“It’s like killing two birds with one Doyoung-shaped stone!” he announces.

“Economical,” replies Yuta dryly.

But when he takes a step back to assess where they’re at, he finds that he doesn’t mind. It’s been quite a while since they’ve all gathered together like this, and he’s missed it. There’s Doyoung and Jaehyun being gross and feeding each other across the table, chairs pushed all the way together. There’s Sicheng laughing at Ten’s wildly inappropriate story about a choreographer he worked with once and Ten’s crescendoing volume as he gets to the really juicy bit. Doyoung had led them in a rousing rendition of the happy birthday song a few minutes earlier, adding unnecessary harmonies just to one-up any other restaurant patrons who might also be celebrating. All things considered, it’s nice. 

Only Jungwoo is absent, although it isn’t because he wasn’t invited. His internship has been swallowing all of his free time lately, with the android rerelease proposal likely at the front of his mind. Yuta gets the sense that this plan means just as much to him as it does to Yuta himself, albeit for different reasons, which he respects. Jokes about ascending the corporate ladder aside, it’s clear that Jungwoo is invested the integrity of his father’s work—his own work, soon.

Yuta’s even texted him multiple times to offer assistance in any way he can, but the logistics of this whole thing are a little over his head. Honestly, he lacks the programming background to parse a solid 85% of the stuff Jungwoo sends him back. It’s still exciting to see his gradual progress, however, and Yuta tries his best to offer encouragement along the way since he can’t do much else. 

As the dinner winds down, Yuta surprises everyone by offering to foot the bill. And he does, despite a number of protests that this was intended as a birthday gift, because he knows that he hasn’t been easy to deal with lately and this gesture is one of appreciation. He’s kind of too broke to be doing things like this, but dealing with that particular problem can be postponed. It’s worth it to see the wonder and relief in his friends’ faces at witnessing him start to come back into himself, a sign of progress, finally.

This time, he’s ready for Ten to bring it up.

It’s approaching midnight and they’re watching some historical film together in the dark, neither wanting to go to bed just yet but both so full and boneless that sleep is coming for them right here on the couch. The confusing, often backtracking plot doesn’t help matters. Yuta’s trying to remember which of the five princes conspired with the rebel army against his father when Ten turns around and says, “It’s been hard, hasn’t it?” 

“What?” 

Ten gives him a look that says Yuta should know what he’s talking about, illuminated only by sporadic flashes of brightness from the screen. “Being without him. Waiting for an answer. You’ve been doing tons better lately, but I can see how much it still weighs on you.”

Yuta sighs. He’d told Ten about Jungwoo’s idea the same day it had been hatched, too wound up to keep it to himself for even a couple hours longer. “It’s a lot harder than I thought it’d be.”

“I can only imagine,” says Ten, soft. 

There is a long, pronounced pause before Yuta speaks again. “This wasn’t supposed to happen to begin with. I wasn’t supposed to like him.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “Or to fall—to fall in—”

“Love?”

The word makes Yuta’s skin burn all over, a spark, the freedom of release. He closes his eyes and does not refute it. 

“It’s messed up, right? Taeyong wasn’t human. I went and caught feelings for a fucking android.” He doesn’t know what he’s asking anymore, or what he believes. Most of all, he thinks he just wants assurance. 

“He was human enough,” offers Ten quietly, and the jagged piece of shrapnel that had lodged itself in Yuta’s chest on the day of Taeyong’s departure twists suddenly and violently, gouging an ugly laceration into the space between his lungs.

“I miss him so much,” Yuta admits. The last word comes out a little strangled. 

Ten leans over immediately to envelop him in a warm, tight hug. The rings on his fingers dig slightly into Yuta’s sides, and he still smells like the ridiculously expensive cologne that Yuta gave him for his birthday a couple years ago. The familiarity is grounding, a reminder that no matter what happens, he has this. 

“I know,” says Ten, sighing into Yuta’s shoulder. “I know.”

 

+

 

RECEIVED 2:09 PM

_hope you’re home right now because i’m on my way up_

 

+

 

Yuta's sitting on the kitchen floor, surrounded by long-overdue grocery purchases and debating whether or not he’ll leave the job of putting them away for later, when there’s a flurry of knocks at the door. This is odd in itself, because the only person who bothers knocking on their door instead of saying “Hey, you guys in here or what?” is Jaehyun, and he never raps on the wood twenty times in the space of a second as if being chased.

He glances at his phone, which displays one unread message from Jungwoo, and suddenly it makes sense. Yuta can’t stand up and answer the door fast enough.

“Hi,” greets Jungwoo, looking awfully calm. The orange of his hair protrudes starkly against the gray backdrop of the wall behind him, making him look more like an otherworldly messenger than a tired intern. 

Yuta realizes that he’s never before seen Jungwoo in their doorway. Ten’s had him over a number of times while Yuta was out, sure, especially now that Jungwoo’s roommate has returned from abroad, but this is Yuta’s first time letting him into their place. It feels as auspicious as it does nerve-wracking.

“Hey babe,” says Ten, meandering into the living room. He tilts his head. “You look tense. Is something up?” 

“Yeah, actually.” Jungwoo closes the door behind him and slides his bag off his shoulder irreverently. It lands with a thump, probably full of really expensive tech that he seems to care nothing about in the moment. “So you know how my proposal has been in review by the higher-ups for a while? They got back to me today.” 

“Well, what did they say?” presses Ten. Yuta can’t even find his voice in time to beat him to it. 

Jungwoo’s not wearing his usual smile and it twangs uncomfortably at Yuta’s sense of premonition, an unspoken warning. He grips the armrest of the couch to steady himself.

“It went through,” Jungwoo announces.

“Are you serious? That’s amazing!” Ten plants a wet kiss on Jungwoo’s cheek, beaming ear to ear. “I knew you could do it.” Jungwoo obligingly turns to meet Ten halfway when he goes in for another kiss, this time on the mouth, but the smile is still absent when they part.

“There’s something else, isn’t there,” says Yuta. 

Now Jungwoo’s lips twist up, but the shape is off-kilter. “You could tell, huh.” His hand slips into Ten’s as he formulates a complete answer. “The thing is, Taeyong’s been on standby for a pretty long time now, and his system wasn’t really designed to hold up to that. He and the other android, Jaemin, might have some issues remembering people they’ve interacted with and experiences they’ve had.”

The cord of creeping suspicion snaps, sending Yuta’s stomach plummeting towards the floor. “He won’t remember me?”

“It’s just a possibility,” Jungwoo tells him, wincing. “He may or may not. But they’re also saying that the memories might return over time.”

‘Might’ is a word that does just about nothing to placate Yuta, and in fact almost makes him wish Jungwoo would flat-out tell him no so that he doesn't get his hopes shattered. But as soon as that particular thought crosses his mind, he banishes it with a vehemence: a chance, however slim, is a million times better than nothing. 

The wait that ensues between Jungwoo’s announcement and Taeyong’s second arrival feels like several lifetimes crammed together. 

(“Now that your wounds are healing, am I allowed to tell you that you're being downright histrionic?” says Doyoung when Yuta texts him to complain for the third time in as many hours.)

But then, on the coldest day that autumn has seen so far, Yuta enters the lobby of his apartment building to finally— _finally_ —see a massive box propped up next to the elevators, and he's overcome with a wave of relief so intense that his knees almost buckle under the sheer force of it.

This time, it's him forcing to Ten help him fit it inside the elevators, to haul it into the kitchen, to open the box. It's even more heavily armored now, with multiple layers of thick gel padding fitted around the box's interior to protect the body inside.

Ten throws in the towel at the three-quarters mark, declaring that Yuta can handle it from here. Yuta, for his part, is so focused that he doesn't even notice Ten leaving. He works single-mindedly at removing the packaging piece by piece, determined not to get distracted by the stretches of slender limbs that are slowly exposed. Only when all is unwrapped and laid bare does Yuta permit himself to lean back, still kneeling, and take in the form framed perfectly by the box.

Taeyong’s face greets him, silent, soft but regal, every bit as beautiful as before. 

Almost everything is like before, really, except that the circumstances and emotions Yuta's going through are flipped completely backwards. He's anxious because he wants to see that flicker of recognition cross Taeyong’s features. His heartbeat is thundering because he's elated, anticipating. His hands are shaking because he knows what they feel like pressed against Taeyong’s and he's _missed_ it for so long and here it is, the opportunity, longing so sharp that it physically hurts and an utter benediction, all in one.

Yuta reaches forward and cradles the back of Taeyong’s head in his arms like it's made of glass. Fumbles for the control panel at the back of Taeyong’s head and holds his breath.

It's almost funny that after all the time Yuta has spent thinking about the exact shape and glimmer of Taeyong’s eyes, he still jumps when they blink open. 

Gathering up his courage, he pushes forward.

“Hi,” he says, fighting to keep his voice level. “I’m Yuta. Do you remember me?”

Now that Yuta is looking directly into Taeyong’s eyes, he notices that they’ve changed. They’re a lighter shade of brown, more translucent, and rimmed with the same glowing blue that had been present on every piece of equipment in the lab. Taeyong’s gaze is hazy and unfocused.

Yuta’s blood goes absolutely frigid, chilling him from the inside out. The moment stretches out, quiet enough to hear a pin drop, and still nothing. 

Taeyong blinks another time, lips parting only to close again.

One of Yuta's hands slips unconsciously from the nape of Taeyong's neck down his lifeless arm until their fingers interlock. He squeezes hard, and Taeyong's answering squeeze is faint, confused.

“Taeyongie, please,” he whispers. His hold is starting to slip, conviction on the verge of waning. Taeyong is going to say no. Taeyong has forgotten him, and he’ll be devastated. 

There is another second of silence before Taeyong smiles beatifically, his entire face lighting up with joy. His palm moves slowly against Yuta's, flexing as his grip tightens.

“Of course I remember you,” he answers. “I could never forget.”

The resulting grin that takes over Yuta is a hundred thousand watts of pure energy, a helplessly euphoric thing that makes his cheeks ache and his eyelashes damp.

He holds Taeyong to his chest, close enough that he can easily hear the whirring underneath Taeyong's skin. It might be his imagination, but the rhythm sounds synced to the beating of his own heart.

 

+

 

♡

 

+

 

Yuta weaves through the crowd, tossing _excuse me_ ’s left and right to the researchers milling about in his path. Taeyong’s panel is due to start in—he struggles to fish his phone from his pocket—about five minutes ago, but he’ll damn well make it to the front row no matter what.  

The special occasion today is SM’s annual Robotics and AI Expo, at which they’d requested Taeyong’s presence for a presentation about humanizing artificial consciousness. And by requested, of course, Yuta means court summons. The two of them don’t have any choice in the matter, but along with Taeyong’s quarterly lab check-ups, the mandatory inconvenience is fairly minor.

Besides, reflects Yuta as he wedges himself through a narrow gap, it’s nice that Taeyong gets to shine a little.

He’s near enough to the stage now to make out two figures standing shoulder to shoulder: Taeyong on the left, nodding at something the speaker is explaining, and a slightly taller one on the right. The projection hovering above his head reads NCT816-JM, and it dawns on Yuta that this must be Jaemin. Sure enough, when the slide changes, the shifting light glances pink off the top of the android’s head.

Yuta pays dedicated attention to the remainder of the presentation, flashing an encouraging thumbs up when Taeyong turns to scan the audience. Admittedly, he’s still a little too far away to discern whether or not there’s any change in Taeyong’s expression, but he hopes that Taeyong has seen him. And even if he hasn’t, he knows that Yuta is cheering him on anyway.

It takes just under twenty minutes for the panel to conclude neatly. Yuta ignores the press pics being taken only meters away in favor of taking his own photos of the event like a parent attending a school production, even sending a few to the group chat for everyone to admire. Taeyong looks surprisingly in his element despite being watched by nearly a hundred people and even stays for a few minutes afterwards to answer questions. His posture is impeccable, responses thorough, the picture of experienced customer service.

Yuta catches snippets of impressed conversation as the audience finally trickles away and feels a gush of sappy pride well up inside him. He begins making his way towards the side of the stage that has a short staircase attached, smiling wide before he even consciously registers it.

“Hey, you,” he says, winding an arm around Taeyong’s narrow waist as soon as he’s within proximity. At this point, it’s practically second nature. 

“Hi,” responds Taeyong, leaning into him. “Were you watching?”

“Of course! Just who do you take me for?” Yuta bites his bottom lip in a poor attempt to school his face into exaggerated offense, but the corners of his mouth spring stubbornly back up. 

Taeyong plays along, laughing and asking Yuta to excuse his lack of faith. His necktie, a present for the occasion, is silky underneath Yuta’s fingers when he tugs on it to issue mock forgiveness. Someone’s forgotten to turn off the stage lights, so they continue to roam about, strobing Taeyong’s skin and hair in prismatic veils of changing color. He looks like a dream. He makes Yuta feel lucky. 

As predicted, there were initially some issues with his memory returning: specific names, dates, and skills evaded him for the better part of the first few months. Gone were the bits of Japanese he’d picked up from Yuta’s dedicated manga translations, along with most of his understanding of figurative expressions. He’d had to get reacquainted with pop culture and current events, and he jumped about five feet in the air the first time he accidentally walked in on Doyoung and Jaehyun making out. (Yuta had laughed, but he empathizes. It’s almost become a rite of initiation among their general friend circle.)

In the end, though, none of that really matters because what Taeyong does remember is what’s most important: friends, feelings, a burgeoning sense of trust.

It’s late spring now, approaching the one year anniversary of Taeyong’s first arrival, and the ground they’ve covered since then is immense. It’s not the easiest task in the world to navigate, but they learn from each other. Yuta guides Taeyong through the complexities of daily life while Taeyong teaches Yuta to marvel a little more at the details he usually looks past. 

They chat about nothing in particular for a while until Yuta notices someone else hanging around the edge of the stage, engaged in conversation with Jaemin. The stranger’s back is turned, but the hand that Jaemin rests comfortably on his arm is in clear view.

Quickly putting two and two together, Yuta reaches out to tap on his shoulder. “Excuse me, are you… Mochi?” 

The face that turns around to meet Yuta’s questioning gaze is very nearly too young to belong on a body so tall, mouth falling open in shock. Despite his impossible height, he can’t be older than about sixteen. He looks to Jaemin as if for guidance and is met with an encouraging nod, likely because Jaemin and Taeyong are already acquainted. 

“Jisung,” he answers gruffly after he’s collected himself. “It’s Park Jisung.” He peers behind Yuta at Taeyong, who’s still mostly pressed into his side. “Are you, like, Scorpio something or other?” 

Yuta considers warning him about the dangers of revealing his full name to randoms that he meets at swanky robotics conventions, but something tells him he wouldn’t be taken too seriously. Honestly, talk of this kid is probably going to be circulating major publications pretty soon, anyway.

“Yeah, that’s me,” he says instead, sticking out a hand. “I’m Nakamoto Yuta. It’s nice to meet you after all this time.”

Jisung blinks at him. “I guess so.” He cautiously extends a hand to shake as well, and Yuta tries not to gawk at how it swallows his own. Clearly, there’s something in the water nowadays that wasn’t around when he was this age.

“You know each other?” chimes in Jaemin.

“He’s from that forum thing, hyung,” Jisung explains lowly.

The honorific usage doesn’t escape Yuta’s notice. Seeing as no android really has a birthdate besides possibly the day they were first powered on, there isn’t any reason to bring an age hierarchy into the situation. Although, come to think of it, there’s a certain quality to Jaemin’s face that suggests maturity—a semblance of natural self-assurance in his wide smile. Recalling that Jisung’s older brother is often away, Yuta supposes that if the kid wants to call Jaemin hyung, there’s nothing stopping him. 

“Have you been working on any displays and stuff around here?” he asks, deliberately holding the door open to a topic that might put Jisung more at ease.

He’s gratified when Jisung takes it, hesitantly starting to relate some labyrinthine tale about drone programming that’s approximately nine-tenths unintelligible jargon. His voice and gestures grow increasingly animated as he goes. 

In spite of his limited comprehension, Yuta manages to nod and react in all the right places, and he’s taken aback when Jisung even laughs at something dumb he contributes towards the end of the story. Considering that he has no clue what they’re really talking about, it’s probably at his expense, but he likes the carefree expression that spreads over Jisung’s face. Yuta decides then and there that he’s going to adopt him.

“Hey, 816-JM!” someone calls from a few booths down. “Come here for a minute, will you?”

Yuta peers down the row to see Baekhyun, now clad in a nice button-up instead of a white coat, waving to get their attention. The lab tech grins wider when he spots Taeyong still loosely holding onto Yuta’s arm, mouthing _congrats_ before he turns his attention back to Jaemin.

“It seems you’re needed elsewhere,” says Taeyong, and Jaemin dips his head apologetically.

“I had better go. It was nice to meet you both today!” He bows another time, perfectly polite, before jogging off with Jisung in tow. They start giggling about something as they head for the display table, and Yuta watches them go, already fond. 

Taeyong faces Yuta again once they’ve disappeared from view. “So what does that leave us to do?” 

Yuta’s phone goes off before he can offer up any suggestions. It’s a text from Ten, reading “ _tell ty he did great up there :D come find us by the VR demos when ur done!!”_ He shows the message to Taeyong, sighing at how quintessentially Ten it is to interrupt him without even being present.

“Guess we’ll go find the others,” he says, taking Taeyong’s hand, easy as breathing. “I think Ten’s still where we left him, hogging the Hatsune Miku home assistant lens.”

Taeyong nods seriously. “We should probably stop him before he does too much damage.”

“True,” Yuta concedes, “but if Jungwoo couldn’t manage to tear him away, I have no clue how we’re going to.”

“We’ll find a way,” says Taeyong. He looks unreasonably cute with his eyes still catching the stage lights, head bobbing in a determined little nod. Yuta can’t resist swooping down to plant a kiss on the apple of his left cheek, savoring the flustered smile that tugs at Taeyong’s mouth immediately afterwards. 

“You’re right,” he agrees, intertwining their fingers. “We’re getting pretty good at that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi i am back from the dead (reprise)
> 
> thank you so much for reading/interacting w this fic and waiting while i was mia T___T i wouldnt have been motivated to finish it without all ur kind words of encouragement T_______T i'm really grateful!!!!
> 
> you can find me on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/cultofjaemin) (my main) and [here](https://twitter.com/cultofwinwin) (to talk about fic things) or drop me a [cc](https://curiouscat.me/daelos) ♡


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